Sanden,+John+Howard

Biographical Information:
Dates: 1935- Dates in Ridgefield: 1985- nonfiction, painting portrait artist, educator, lecturer One of the world’s leading portrait artists, John Howard Sanden has painted more than 600 commissioned works of celebrities, corporate CEOs, senators, congressmen, and heads of colleges and universities. While most of his works are of corporate chiefs--he has painted nine of the 400 richest people in the world--Mr. Sanden has painted portraits of leaders in other fields. He painted President George W. Bush’s official White House; Sir Isaac Stern was also a portrait subject, as was Billy Graham. “Billy Graham came to my studio twice, and before I finished the portrait at his home in North Carolina, he asked if he could pray for the success of the portrait,” Mr. Sanden told //The Ridgefield Press// in 1999. “I never had anyone else do that, and it was thrilling.” A native of Austin, Texas, he grew up in the South and lived many years in the Midwest. He studied at the Minnesota School of Art, and began doing portraits for //Reader’s Digest//, based on photos taken by others. Now, he takes his own pictures. In 1969, at the age of 34, he moved to New York where he studied and later taught for 23 years at the Art Students League. He established a studio and has never run out of commissions to paint. Mr. Sanden, who came to Ridgefield in1985, commuted to his city studio at Carnegie Hall for 13 years, but in 1998, he built a home studio here and now does only the first and final sittings in New York. He lectures widely on portraiture, does demonstration classes, and has produced seven videos on portrait painting. He has also written several books on the subject. In 1995, he was the recipient of the first John Singer Sargent Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the American Society of Portrait Artists.

**Titles (partial): ** //Painting the Head in Oil // 1976 //Successful Portrait Painting // 1986  //Portraits From Life in 29 Steps //, 1999  //The Portraits of John Howard Sanden //, 2001  //Portraits From Life in 29 Steps, //2004 <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px; text-align: justify;">--Sources: [|www.johnhowardsanden.com;] Wikipedia [|Check the library catalog for titles by this author.]