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75 local artists apply for $50K commission to paint portrait of Raimondo, who picks NY artist
Photo: May, 2020, RI State House news conference
The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) announced that former Governor Gina M. Raimondo has selected Patricia Watwood, of Brooklyn, New York, to paint her official gubernatorial portrait.
Chosen from a field of 350 applicants, the official portrait selection committee of State Arts Council members and community representatives initially narrowed the applications for the commission to 11.
In the original field of 350 applicants, according to RISCA, were 75 Rhode Island artists who applied to paint the portrait. The group was then narrowed to 11 for Gov. Raimondo to choose from, and that group included 3 Rhode Island artists. Rhode Island budgets $50,000 for the official portrait of each Governor, at the end of their office-holding. Expenses are also provided, in addition to the commission fee. (Correction: RI budgets $25,000 – another $50,000 from nonprofit political group, for a total of $75,000)
In a 2011 exhibition of portraits of RI Governors at the Providence Art Club, 36 were painted by members of the Providence Art Club. The exhibition was the end of a four-year campaign to clean and restore the so-called “Gallery of Governors,” the collection of official portraits that Rhode Island governors traditionally commission before leaving office. The portraits, as of 2011, numbered 71.
Public Artists need not live in Rhode Island – but funds are from Rhode Island taxpayers
Most public art projects in Rhode Island are open to all residents of the United States, not just Rhode Island residents, even though RISCA has a combined budget of over $4 million, with local, federal funds and private funds. With the RI School of Design (RISD) and other arts’ education and resources in Rhode Island, the call for funding Rhode Islanders with Rhode Island tax dollars meets the debate that art should be judged only on its merit, and not weighted to only Rhode Islanders.
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About Patricia Watwood
Upon hearing of the commission, Watwood said, “It is a great honor to be selected to portray Rhode Island’s first woman governor. In creating this work of art for the State House, I look forward to celebrating her inspiring service, and show young women, girls, and the people of Rhode Island that there is a place in leadership at the highest level for all of us.”
Previously, Watwood’s commissioned portraits include two mayors of St. Louis for City Hall and two historical portraits of pioneering women, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Ida B. Wells, both in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums. Other institutions that have commissioned her work include Weill Cornell Medical Center, St. Louis University, and Washington University. Originally from St. Louis, she has created portraits for many families in the St. Louis area as well as around her current home, New York.
Watwood is a member of the Salmagundi Club of New York, where she is the current First Vice President (2021). She is also a Signature member of the Portrait Society of America and named a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. She’s represented by Portraits Inc. and Dacia Gallery, and others.
Watwood earned her MFA with honors from New York Academy of Art and studied with Jacob Collins as a founding member of the Water Street Atelier. Watwood has produced instructional DVDs including “Creating Portraits from Life,” with Streamline Art Video, has been a professor of drawing at New York Academy of Art.
Brooklyn-based Watwood is a leading figure in the contemporary figurative movement. Her subjects are primarily women and figures, incorporating myth and narrative. She has been exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, The European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), The Butler Museum, and is in the collections of The St. Louis University Museum of Art, and The New Britain Museum of American Art.
She has created several online drawing courses, including Seven Days of Drawing, with the creative streaming platform Craftsy.com [craftsy.com]. She has written articles for American Artist, American Arts Quarterly, and Fine Art Connoisseur magazines, and teaches painting in Brooklyn, online with Terracotta.org [terracotta.org], and in workshops around the country.
Her first book, “The Path of Drawing,” is coming out with Monacelli Studio Press in late 2022. Learn more about Watwood at www.patriciawatwood.com [patriciawatwood.com].
State law requires that an official portrait be commissioned for each governor by the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State has requested that the State’s Arts Agency oversee the process.
About the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) is a state agency supported by appropriations from the Rhode Island General Assembly and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. RISCA provides grants, technical assistance and staff support to arts organizations and artists, schools, community centers, social service organizations and local governments to bring the arts into the lives of Rhode Islanders. Visit www.arts.ri.gov for more information.
Of all the talented artists in RI
Why a NY artist? If RI taxpayers
Foot the bill it should be a RI
Artist.
$50,000 is a yearly income. Plus expenses. Way too much. Government waste.
Will Ms. Raimundo be earning her federal salary while she sits for the portrait?
And portraits are an anachronism. What need? What purpose? What do we have with a portrait of a former governor? Absolutely nothing. Except wasted taxpayer money. Hang a photograph.
This is not the 18th century.
We’ve learned that it could be $75,000 with $25K coming from Rhode Island budget and another $50,000 from a Governor’s Association – we’re working on confirming that.
It says that it’s not all government money. 25k is from State. 50,000 comes from a nonprofit.
Also if all those men are hanging up there, why would we stop the portraits before the first woman governor?
I’ve spent enough time staring at the rows of men to welcome a portrait of our first woman governor. But I hope future governors will choose artists from Rhode Island. It’s not like we have an artist shortage here.