The Adventure of the Architect’s Wife

Is the Customer Always Right?

What happens when a commissioner criticizes the finished portrait because it looks just like the model? He demands that it be repainted! Repaint or Destroy?

I was preparing for a one-person show in Houston. I was painting in McAllen, Texas, a few months before the show. A friend has set me up in one of his houses and left me alone to paint.

One weekend, I had a pool party. During the party, a friend asked to see my work. I took him to the studio, and he asked good questions about my paintings.

He wanted me to paint his son in the style of the old masters. He described what he wanted. The following day, I went to his home and took photos of the boy with his old rocking horse. The boy was very comfortable in front of the camera. The images were beautiful.

It took four weeks for the life-size portrait to be completed and framed. I liked the painting. The delivery could have been more comfortable. The commissioner looked at the work from near and far. He looked closely and critically. He was not seeing his son. He was judging. Finally, he said that his son’s face was too light.

He was a self-made entrepreneur and a Mexican. His face was brown. His son’s face was white. He was concerned with how the community would judge the color of the son’s face. I had noticed class distinctions within the Hispanic community.

I saw his dilemma and considered how to handle the rejection of the work. I took the painting home and hung it on the studio wall.

Four days later, I returned to the commissioner’s home and showed him the portrait. I asked him to look at his son and tell me his thoughts. He stood beside me, about 10 feet from the portrait. He saw his son through his own eyes and not the community’s eyes. He shook my hand and congratulated me on the excellent work.

I dealt with a good man and listened to his words and thoughts. His objections did not originate in his consciousness but in the community. I did not paint for the community. I painted for the father, then asked him to see “his son.” All was well this time.

Sometime later, I was invited to Monterrey, NL, Mexico, to paint two portraits: a young widow and a local television personality. I settled into an apartment and began the projects. I took source photos for the preliminaries.

I stretched the canvas for each portrait. The first portrait took ten days, and the second took only seven days. Word of my visit and purpose was made public in the newspaper and mentioned on the morning TV news program.

The phone rang, and a secretary requested an appointment to discuss another portrait. The next day, the meeting was with a prominent and successful architect in his office.

The architect was precise with his desires. He wanted me to paint his wife of 5 years. He praised her beauty and told me to capture her natural beauty and grace. I made the appointment to meet her in their home and take the preliminary photographs of the wife.

I was in the vestibule the following day, waiting for the wife to come down. She was just as beautiful as her husband described. Her walk was more like a glide. She just floated.

Her grace was also evident in her conversation. We talked for more than two hours. It was common for me to speak with the subject to see the face in many different transitions. She walked for me to and fro because the portrait would be life-size standing.

Fourteen days later, I made the delivery appointment with both, husband and wife present. I brought the completed, framed work into their living room and stood it before the mantle. The painting had a sheet of Kraft paper covering it for protection.

When the couple was seated opposite the work, I removed the paper cover. The wife smiled widely and gave a little squeak of joy. The husband jumped up and approached the painting. He did not look happy. He told his wife to stay put on the sofa.

I asked him what he thought. He told me it was unacceptable, that I had missed the commission’s purpose. True, I did not understand the “purpose” of the portrait. When questioned, he told me why he wanted the portrait of his beautiful wife.

He was proud of his Castilian heritage, meaning he was white. His wife was a Mexican from a middle-class family. He thought her face should be painted darker to show her lower birth. The painting showed her exact complexion. He agreed, but I should have seen the lower class in her bearing.

He could not accept this painting as I had painted her as she looked and not as he wanted. He wanted to show his “white” friends how he had elevated this fortunate woman to a more exalted position. He continued explaining his beliefs and status vis-à-vis the portrait. He mentioned that I painted her tall and slender. Lower-class Mexican women should appear shorter and thicker. She was 5' 8" and less than 120 lb. She was ideal!

He told me to put a new canvas in the frame and repaint it like he wanted. He had told me none of this when he commissioned the portrait. I was quite upset with my bigoted client and told him I would not repaint her like he wanted.

He became agitated, and I decided the episode was at an end. I took a folding knife from my pocket and sliced the canvas with two strokes. I would not refund the first payment, and I carried the framed work out of the house.

The proud father wanted a portrait of his son that displayed his love and pride. When he looked at the painting through the eyes of his neighbors, I had to remind him to look through his love. His son will grow in the glow of that love and pride.

The bigoted husband wanted to humiliate his wife and show his dominance and power over her. That was not the way I wanted my painting to be used. My artwork depicted a beautiful, graceful woman in full bloom. Sadly, her husband could not live with that.

What did I learn? The father could listen and see what was there. That exchange was warm and filled with love.

I failed to see the lessons in the second adventure — the lesson for me and the lessons for the couple. The architect learned nothing about his behavior or his life. Because he was completely closed and could not listen. My behavior was poor because I lost my tolerance and patience. Where was the Love?

I should not have destroyed the portrait. If it had survived, there was a remote possibility of a reconciliation. When I sliced the canvas, I terminated the adventure without possible growth.

We are all here on this planet to learn and grow. We should keep that in mind always.

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