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January 2003

Portrait of an Artist:
Following the career of
SONYA SKLAROFF

It is eight o'clock, Friday evening, late September. I am standing on the gleaming, burnished zigzag of the parquet floors in a grand reception room of the French Consulate on Fifth Avenue in New York. The grandeur of the space, with its ancient carved and painted ceiling probably imported plank by plank from Europe, its crystal chandelier the size of an inverted Christmas tree, and its silk damask ashes-of-roses wall coverings intensifies the joy of the evening. Sonya Sklaroff, the Pennsylvania-born New Yorker is being fêted at the opening of her one-woman show of New York City street scenes displayed in this palace, thus marking one more step upward in her remarkable career. I am beaming with pride for her and her family. I feel as though I am one of her family, since I have adopted five of her oils into my own collection of works by living realist artists. And I cannot help thinking back to the day that I first met her and how far she has come.

I got a price list and ran around the lobby comparing image to price, and settled on a couple I liked. Money was an issue for me at the time, so I picked the smaller, less expensive view at about $500.00. I called the curator, Kevin Kish, a few days later and he agreed to let me try out the picture at home for a week or two before deciding to buy it, and delivered it to my office. Since it fit in my briefcase, I carried the painting, "Dusk, Soho #1", around with me for a few days to solicit opinions from friends. At a party one evening, I set it out on the host's mantle. It was universally praised. One woman, herself an artist, admired it and asked me how much I'd paid, speculating it must be worth a couple of thousand. That was reassuring.

But dollar value notwithstanding, "Dusk, Soho #1" had an enduring appeal, a haunting air of romance and mystery, however without a trace of cloying sentimentality. And although it suggested a Hopperesque darkness, it was free of Hopper's attendant alienation. I bought the picture and asked Kish to help me get in touch with the artist.

Shortly thereafter I got Sonya on the phone (I "stalked" her, as she likes to say), and invited her to come by to see her painting and the rest of my collection as soon as the white-gold frame I chose for it was made. Genial and cheerful she gladly agreed, and we met face to face a month or two later. This was the beginning of our friendship. Sonya, then twenty-five, a petite 5'0" with a tumble of jet black hair and deep brown eyes, squealed (no other word for it) squealed in delight to see her painting in the frame I'd selected. Never, she told me, had she seen a painting of hers in a frame so magnificent. Up to that time her works were usually mounted only with wooden backings painted black. Then she went on to tell me about some of the other collectors who had purchased her works and the astonishing apartments they hung them in. My place isn't at all fancy so I shared her amazement. Then we spent a few hours going over my collection, and this is when I really decided Sonya was at least as attractive as her artworks-she was so appreciative of the works in my collection and so insightful in her analyses and generous with her praise of what the other artists had produced. Her delight in their works was genuine, and her immersion in their creativity was total. There was not a word comparing her own works to theirs, nor a thought of pushing me to see or buy additional Sklaroff paintings. Rather, she drew me into the fascinations of my collection and let me see it through her eyes so that I could appreciate the entire collection anew. By time she left my apartment I was seeing "Dusk, Soho #1" much less as a stirring distillation of a New York mood, but as a tiny reflection of this marvelous and gifted young artist.

But Sonya operates in a business full of smarmy, loathsome opportunists, and outright crooks. Not to mentions the bores, the boors, the petty, the jealous and the lechers. Of course, things don't always go that well. Dinner conversation with Sonya can raise hairs. If one has a protective instinct it is hard to suppress in the presence of this diminutive dear. Several years ago Sonya decided to get a graduate degree in Fine Arts to add to the bachelor's she holds from the Rhode Island School of Design, and enrolled in The Parsons School of Design in New York. Already an accomplished emerging artist, she thought it best to have the degree that would permit her to teach in accredited institutions and otherwise advance her career. She reasoned that "many corporations, museums, galleries, universities, artists-in-residencies, private collectors and other grant giving programs often show more interest in an artist who has shown a commitment to advancing her education." This move has paid off handsomely for Sonya, and now not only does she teach two courses at Parsons, but she is also asked to lecture in museums and educational institutions. However, at that time she found herself in the awkward situation of having to defend herself against certain of her dealers who would dissuade her from going back to school because they did not want to be thought of as showing students' works, and at the same time having misgivings about the perceptions of some of her instructors who might think she wouldn't fit in, since she was quite a bit more than just a novice. Some of these misgivings were not unfounded, and did result in additional struggles to overcome.

Hardships also exist outside of academia. For one thing, as any artist must, Sonya constantly struggles to maintain her identity in a world which would peg her in a false pigeon hole. Often her cultivated, polished demeanor is misread by a public who cannot fathom the realities of a young artist's life. "I'm 'well-bred' on the surface," she says, "I don't chew with my mouth open." But there are no hours at the pedicure boutique for Sonya, and in her words, her work clothes are "disgusting." Her days and nights are crammed with painting and marketing, applying for grants, attending or teaching art courses and being ready at a moment's notice to be wherever necessary to take advantage of a good opportunity. She is not married. "I can't even have a pet," she tells me, since she never knows when she'll have to leave town for months at a time for an artist's residency.

Not married? It's not for lack of suitors, I can assure you. It's just been difficult to make the right match. For some reason, guys see a nice girl of a certain background, and that's the part they expect her to play. Then they wonder why they hardly ever see her. That's because, for example, when she was a graduate student she was taking full time courses all day, teaching weekends, lugging paintings from one side of town to the other, and since she had won a grant to work at a prestigious sponsored studio in the World Trade Center she was there all night. They would take her to cocktail parties where there were other nice girls who would greet her with "Oh you're a painter? That must be so relaxing." Or, "You're an artist? What restaurant to you waitress at?" Or, just a few weeks ago, "Well if you're an artist, all you ever do is sit around in cafés all day, so I'm sure I can have nothing to say to you. . .." It is difficult to feel at home, much less make a home in that kind of atmosphere. Then what about relationships with other artists? That brings its own difficulties. "There's the competition factor. I'm an artist but also a business woman. Other artists need too much help." One female art dealer offered this advice: "Freeze your eggs, now."

Not married? Lets' say Sonya is demonstrably wedded to her art. "Starting out I knew it would be difficult," she tells me. "Other friends in conventional careers had big houses, cars and paid vacations. That could be hard to confront. But this keeps me going. On my toes. Energized. A lot of these friends are through with struggling. In my studio I'm always struggling, striving, looking for meaning and forms. I'm not complaining." Correct, Sonya doesn't complain, even on those very bad days, such as several years ago when a Fifth Avenue matron called, came for a visit taking up two hours of studio time, then later asked Sonya to deliver a painting. Sonya dutifully wrapped the oil on panel Maine interior, rather weighty (it was "taxicab size-36" x 48"), and delivered it to an enormous apartment with an expansive view of Central Park. Later the matron called and demanded Sonya retrieve it. Sonya dragged herself across town again only to find the painting in the corridor, unwrapped. The lady of the house wouldn't let her inside the apartment, so the housekeeper helped out with the wrapping, in the hallway. They said they rejected the piece because "they couldn't afford it." "Give me any excuse but that," says Sonya. (The picture later sold to others.)

Other troubles have emerged from time to time. For instance there was the male art world figure who behaved "inappropriately" towards her. Artists, you may realize, cannot file harassment complaints with their Human Resources managers. Instead she was left to sever that business relationship. Then there is the jealousy inevitably to be suffered by every fine artist from Leonardo on down, such as the night she went to her own opening at Gale Martin Fine Art, her current New York gallery, wearing a ruffled black outfit she chose that afternoon with her mother. Her paintings sold very well. The next day another artist (very talented if you ask me, however, apparently frustrated with his own achievements) sent her an email saying "It's a shame you feel you have to dress like such a tart to sell your paintings," except he used a word much more cruel than "tart." I can also remember doing a little handholding with her last year after she was interviewed and photographed by the New York Times in a story related to September 11th. Finding fault with the way she was portrayed in the article, a group of artists with whom she'd painted together for years unceremoniously dumped her.

The family worries-"Ultimately they'd like me to marry a nice rich doctor." But the Sklaroffs are very supportive, and I can testify to that since I have witnessed them travel up to New York from the family seat in Philadelphia to attend every important occasion Sonya's had in the time since I've known her. Her father, Jerome, is a retired orthodontist and a part-time professor at the University of Pennsylvania dental school; her mother, Carole, a former principal dancer in the Pennsylvania Ballet Company is currently a professor at the The University of the Arts in Philadelphia in their ballet department. On the occasion of this opening at the French Consulate, her grandmother also made the trip, as did her sister, Lizabeth, from Florida.

They were there back in 1995 at the opening of the NYU Small Works art show, a prestigious annual exhibition which marked the first time a Sklaroff painting was ever shown publicly in New York. Sonya was selected out of hundreds of artists submitting works to that juried exhibition. Previously she had shown works on her own as part of the FranklinFest, which is an organized tour of downtown artist studios, and her studio mate there told her about the NYU Small Works show. Being selected was a thrill for Sonya, but when at that opening the independent curator, Kevin Kish, approached her and said he'd like to work with her, she was stunned, and incredulously believed he must have been someone her father paid to make her feel better. He wasn't. Kevin was legit, and organized solo exhibitions of her work at the Roundabout, where I first took real notice of her. Other exhibitions followed, including several shows at Eighteenth and Eighth, a popular Chelsea restaurant which shows original art in four-week exhibitions. Never one to scoff at the commercial potentials of lower profile venues, Sonya mounted several shows there, which raised her profile with the restaurant's largely gay clientele. Here she showed a half dozen of her documentary cityscapes, notably featuring water towers seen at the top of apartment buildings. These are architectural details indigenous to New York, but rarely brought into focus by other artists as Sonya has done. This lead to a call out of the blue from Steven Walsh, an interior designer who decided to make Sonya the exclusive artist to be hung in a posh Upper East Side restaurant, also popular with gays, called The Townhouse. There, six small water tower paintings lend local color through their indigenous city views along with four domestic interiors.

Sonya has exhibited in many group shows at significant galleries; and her first New York solo show was at the Allen Sheppard Gallery in Chelsea, in 1999. At that time I remarked on the highly unusual coincidence that Mr. Sheppard; Karen Jenkins Johnson, the owner of her San Francisco gallery; the greatly respected artist Faith Ringgold, a former grad school professor and favorite mentor; and I were among the strongest supporters of her work and we are all African Americans. (Sonya is not black.) This is a strong indicator of the range of Sonya Sklaroff's appeal, for she has very strong supporters among gays, blacks, Jews, New Englanders, Philadelphians, the Park Avenue set, corporate art curators and all sorts of people who love good painting. Just what is the source of that appeal? How is it that without exploiting visual gimmickry, political hot buttons, celebrities, scandalous subject matter or a tabloid lifestyle and without seizing upon fashionable art world trends, is Sonya Sklaroff able to touch so many people? This is the mystery that words will never explain. When I gave a talk on collecting several years ago I likened her to Mozart, who also spoke widely and deeply while remaining within the conventions of musical composition of his day. Also, as with Mozart's music, in Sonya's art one finds the sweet, the tender, the sincere, the wistful.

In recent years Sonya has been sought after and exhibited by the jeweler Cartier, and by the flagship Steuben glass gallery on Madison Avenue, which gave her a solo show. These exhibitions have been handled by Sonya's agent of three years, G&O Art L.L.C., in the person of Odile Gorse, who with her husband, Ghenadie Burlacu, has worked very effectively to bring Sonya to the point where she is regularly shown in more important venues. For the time being, no more lugging paintings in the backs of cabs, negotiating with dealers or struggling with endless administrative details. Odile takes care of that, freeing Sonya to paint. I understand Odile currently is working to secure Sonya's first European show.

But no event so far has equaled the excitement of this glittering evening at the French Consulate. Her solo exhibition of new works shares space in a grand room also hung with important historical French masterworks by Hubert Robert and Louis Tocques, among others. Cosmetically surgeoned grandes dames in Chanel suits and Jackie-O sunglasses rub elbows with unshaven youths in T-shirts. Nasty French waiters scowl at guests beneath the warm glow of an Eighteenth Century Gobelins tapestry entitled Le triomphe de Mardoché, twenty feet long. The room is filled to capacity. In fact, Sonya has to make last-minute emergency calls to some friends to ask them to be a dear and stay home because the crowd was exceeding the limit and would overwhelm the security detail. Richard Duqué, the French Consul General, makes a speech and proclaims that after the unspeakable horrors of September 11, France is in solidarity with New York and America, and proudly exhibits Sonya Sklaroff's beautiful Manhattan cityscapes as a demonstration of their nation's friendship and support. The paintings are stunning and easily hold their own amid the gilt framed old masters. The largest Sklaroffs now sell for well in excess of $10,000. Skyscrapers, nocturnal street scenes, and of course her signature water towers. I see a jewel of an oil of the Flatiron Building, and it is bought by someone else, essentially, right under my nose.

The show is entitled "Always", which is just about as long as I'll love Sonya and her art.

Gregory J. Peterson is a New York corporate lawyer who collects and lectures about contemporary realist painting.