Insights Into Classical Oil Portrait Paintings

Join Henry Wingate as he discusses the art of portrait painting. During this presentation, Henry will discuss the art of creating portraitures using traditional oil painting techniques.  Following the presentation, Henry will accompany the group on a tour of the portraits on display in the Artmobile.  After viewing the exhibit, Henry will close the session with a discussion of the portraits. 

Henry began his training as a painter at the age of 28, after having served six years as a pilot in the Navy. From an early age he showed an interest in drawing and would have begun his formal study of painting upon finishing high school had he found a college or studio that offered training in traditional representational art that appealed to him. At that time, in the mid-1980s, modern art seemed to be completely dominant in college art departments, and Wingate chose another route. He received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated from Annapolis with a degree in History in 1988. He went on to flight school and ended up as an F-14 pilot stationed at Oceana, Virginia, and on board the USS Kennedy.  After the Navy, he discovered that there was a small group of ateliers, or working studios, teaching painting in the representational style that he had always loved. In 1994 he moved to Boston to study with Paul Ingbretson. He spent five years in the Ingbretson atelier and then added two short stints with another teacher from the same tradition, Charles Cecil, in Florence, Italy.  Now, pleased to be part of this tradition, Wingate has his studio in rural Madison, Virginia. He paints portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes, as well as larger figurative works.

Henry Wingate has won numerous awards, including First Prize in the American Society of Portrait Artists 2000 competition, the Gold Medal of Honor at the 2003 Hudson Valley Art Association annual exhibition, and the Best Painting from Life Award of the National Oil & Acrylic Painters' Society in 2003. His work was featured in the 2006 issue of Portrait Highlights and as the cover article in the November 2002, issue of American Artist.