For the past two years, Michael Del Priore has served as Chairman of the Board of the American Society of Portrait Artists and the American Society of Portrait Artists Foundation. As a young artist, he worked as a successful illustrator for many years, but soon elected to undertake intense studies with nationally renowned portrait artists, including Everett Raymond Kinstler and Nelson Shanks. Today, his commissions total over 700 and include senators, congressmen, recent governors of South Carolina, presidents of the University of South Carolina, corporate executives and private individuals. When he is not serving ASOPA or working on portrait commissions for prominent South Carolinians, Del Priore can be found teaching short courses at the University of South Carolina or the Columbia Museum of Art. As his term as Chairman comes to a close, Signature wanted to spend a little quality time with Michael.

Q: Let's start with the basics. What is your educational background? Who or what were your major influences?
A: Well, basically I'm like everyone else. I'm self-taught. As soon as I got out of high school, I went into illustration—furniture and fashion illustration for major department stores. I also worked as an architectural delineator for an architecture firm for a while. All these activities, drawing furniture and clothing and the perspective I learned from the architecture, helped tremendously in portraiture.

Q: Why did you leave work as an illustrator in favor of portraiture?
A: One day I met a portrait painter out in the mall doing portraits. His name was Gian Cassone. This particular artist did pastels in the mall from life. I was fascinated and I went there every day to watch him. Finally, he said, "I guess you want to do portraits." He taught me everything he knew. I eventually took over his booth. So, I worked in the malls for five days a week for five years. That's how I learned to paint portraits and to paint them fast—by doing them by the hundreds. It wasn't school; it was the life of hard knocks.

I was enamored. I was hooked. But after all of that phase, I realized that I needed to learn a more serious approach to painting, to which I began to study under Ray Goodbred at the Arts Student League. My other mentors included John Sanden, Richard Whitney, Daniel Greene (North Salem Workshop), Everett Raymond Kinstler and Nelson Shanks. All of their teaching culminates into what I am today.

Q: Many of our readers are painters, and they'll be interested in your working methods. Could you share with me a basic outline of your overall portrait process?
A: I paint alla prima, meaning first stroke— in one process or stage or hit. Alla prima is a direct approach to painting. My approach is that I do a charcoal sketch. Then I do an underpainting with thin turpentine. Then I do one color layer with 50/50. The final stage is pure alla prima with pure paint. If I use any medium at all it would be poppy oil. I do it all in one session. I do 30 portraits a year. I've painted over 700 commissions thus far, and I've been doing this for about 25 years. My colleges have nicknamed me "The fastest brush in town," or "The in and out guy."

Q: Did you develop this technique right away or have your working methods changed over the years?
A: In the beginning, I did try the layer on layer. Meaning the very thorough, laborious approach. But I felt that for my spirit of painting, the alla prima works better for me. I just do everything fast.

Q: You have an impressive list of commissions. Would you care to share some of your marketing strategies with our emerging artists?
A: At first, I was with all of the agencies, to which they did me well as an up-and-coming artist. Once I became established and had a reputation, I no longer needed the agencies as much. I've only stayed with one, Portraits Inc. of New York. Ninety percent of all of my work comes from self-promotion, to which I do mailouts, to which I do magazine articles, to which I do what I call One Man Shows.

Q: Which are?
A: I do them in homes. What I do, and this works perfectly for me, is I take the last client and use their portrait, as well as other portraits, and I show them at their home. They have a tea party and invite 25 to 30 of their best friends. The friends drop in and see the work; they take brochures and information with them. I do this quarterly, and every time I do this, I end up with three or four new portrait commissions.

In the future, I can get on the Internet, but I haven't needed to pursue that possibility yet. I could, and probably will, but I just don't need it right now. I also do a lot of judicial and senatorial and congressional portraits which all require an unveiling. Each unveiling has hundreds of people in attendance. That in itself is a great advertisement. Everyone sees the portraits and wants one. Built into each commission is its own marketing.

Q: And speaking of commissions, in your article entitled "Corporate Portraits for Posterity" (The Portrait Signature, Fall 1998), you talk at length about the nuts and bolts of immortalizing a CEO with portrait. Do you have words of advice for working with those involved in the political arena?
A: Yes, well just like the CEO, in the political arena everybody's time is precious. Which means, nobody has any time. I have to get in and get out. I may get to have a lunch, a photo session, and time to do a few color sketches. All this has to be done within an hour or two. Sometimes the lunch is fortified in order to do the work. Time is of the essence. You better be ready to put yourself into 5th gear and be ready to go. There's no time for guessing and no playing around. You have to be very professional.

I've also found that this group is very prestigious. We all have a certain amount of ego. The political arena certainly carries that. That lends itself to portraiture very well. For a portrait to have its full character, one needs to be a little egotistical. It makes one "come out." It makes them become bold.

Q: It lends a certain romanticism?
A: Yes, you could say that. It's the character. It even helps if you're a little eccentric. It's exciting. Washington is exciting. I've been lucky enough to have two portraits hung in the U.S. Capitol—The Chairman of the House Rules Committee, Gerald Solomon; and the Chairman of Appropriations, Bill Young. I've also done two senators, including Senator Strom Thurmond and Pat Roberts. And a lot of congressmen, especially Congressman Henry Hyde for Judiciary.

Q: Is there an anecdote that you would like to share?
A: The strangest was Henry Hyde. I did the portrait before the impeachment hearings. Before that, they were going to have a major unveiling. Once the hearing fell in our laps, the unveiling was postponed, being that Congressman Hyde wanted to keep things quiet. What happened was, it had already been hung in the Judiciary room without the unveiling. Then during the hearing, all of the press—NBC, CBS, Time Magazine, CNN—used the portrait image. The portrait showed up every day all over the air. It showed up everywhere. . .in Time Magazine and Newsweek. The very thing that he was trying to keep quiet showed up on the front page of the news. It turned out to be one of the biggest marketing tools ever. My friends started calling me and saying they were sick of looking at my painting. I got more exposure from that experience than from anything I've ever done before.

Q: With your " in and out" method, what techniques do you use to establish a relationship between patron/subject and yourself? You've only got an hour, how do you know enough about the person to express a subject's personality in you portraits?
A: There's an old cliché that goes, "To do a good a portrait you need to know someone's soul." I don't believe in that. I do believe in a soul. I just don't believe you need to know someone's soul to paint him or her. Sargent painted just what he saw and didn't try to get to know what was underneath. I just observe and paint what's on the surface, not what is within. Now that I've said that, let me say that I do believe that there is a spirit about painting. It's a spirit that comes through my talent that is God given. I'll give you an example. Take an apple, I can paint the apple, but it has no soul. I don't need to know the inner side of that apple. I just need to observe how light is hitting the apple. But I can paint it in a spiritual attitude or feeling by being inspired from above. Painting is spiritual, but we see things on the surface.

Q: As your term as the Chairman of the Advisory Board for the American Society of Portrait Artists draws to a close, do you have reflections about the Society's progress over the last two years that you would like to share with our readers?
A: I am privileged to be a part of this great organization. The whole reason I did this was I wanted to give back. I want to give back to the new and up-and-coming artists. In the two years I was Chairman, I gave it my best shot, but unfortunately my tenure was during the turmoil of the breakup and the beginning of another organization. Most of my duties were trying to keep things in order, but once that was taken care of, I gave as much of my time and talent as I could by giving lectures and hosting demonstrations. Participating with the demonstrations this year at the Metropolitan was quite an honor. We video-taped all the demonstrations and they'll be for sale. I'm excited about these tapes coming out. I'm very proud of the organization. It's going very much forward, and I will still be very much involved, but from the back door rather than from the front door.

Q: As a side note, I understand that you have an impressive antique easel collection. Could you describe it?
A: I started traveling to England to visit famous studios, namely Lord Leighton's and Sargent's. In visiting these studios, I became infatuated with them and started collecting photos of these studios and others. I then attempted to duplicate what I saw in the pictures by modeling my own studio after them. A key ingredient in all of the photos was large rolling easels. That was when I started my collection. I became a fanatic about art boxes, pallets and easels. Everything in my collection is over 100 years old; they are from England or Paris and they are shipped to me from antique collectors and dealers who find them for me. I have 28 easels, over 30 antique boxes, and about five pallets.

It's amazing to me to realize that these are instruments that an artist used and every one of them has a history and a story to tell. Every one of these possibly held a great painting. That just fascinates me. Every time I crank up a very old easel, I feel like I'm giving back the life that the easel was meant for. I use them all the time. I rotate through them, picking one based on the size of a canvass I'm working on. Also, in a year or two, I'm going to build a huge studio for classes, and I will use them in the classroom. They give the aura of the turn-of-the-century and make your studio really look refined. They offer beautiful craftsmanship and engineering.

Michael, thank you for your service with the American Society of Portrait Artists.

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Jennifer Hebblethwaite is the literary manager for the Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia, and a freelance writer and dramaturg.