Portrait Society Gallery

Despite the fact they’ve helped immortalize countless historic figures we want to remember (and many we’d rather forget) and have furnished art history with some of its most iconic works, one can’t help feeling portrait artists have had a bit of a rough deal. Today especially it seems the burden of marrying a strong conceptual core with formal integrity lies more heavily on their shoulders than elsewhere. Perhaps that’s what makes the Portrait Society Gallery such a breath of fresh air. Within its two intimate rooms gallery owner Debra Brehmer has created a casual, domestic setting in which to enjoy the work of artists who approach the art of portraiture from a broad variety of perspectives. Whether it’s the energetic carvings and paintings of self-taught artists like Rudy Rotter, the refined pastel drawings of little known artists like __ or Nicholas Grider photographs of suited men poised in domestic settings, the Portrait Society’s exhibits (and Brehmer’s intelligent essays posted on the gallery website or published in exhibit catalogues) generously embrace what portraiture is and what it can become.