Official Chafee portrait presented to state

Posted 1/20/15

The official portrait of former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee was presented to the state during an event at the State House last week.

Artist Julie Gearan and representatives from the Rhode Island State …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Official Chafee portrait presented to state

Posted

The official portrait of former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee was presented to the state during an event at the State House last week.

Artist Julie Gearan and representatives from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts attended the gathering. Gearan was chosen in April 2014 from among 124 artists who applied late in 2013 as part of a national search conducted by the State Arts Council.

State law requires that an official portrait be commissioned for each governor before he or she leaves office. The law calls on the secretary of state’s office to oversee the selection process. The arts council assisted the secretary of state and governor in organizing the process of securing and reviewing applicants for this commission.

The fee for this commission is $15,000, the same amount paid for the official portrait of former governors Lincoln Almond and Donald Carcieri.

The members of the Gubernatorial Portrait Commission, established by the secretary of state’s office and empowered to advise the governor on the selection of a portrait artist, included Paul Caranci, deputy secretary of state, representing Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis; Jonathan Stevens, special assistant to Chafee, representing the governor’s office; Lorraine Hynes, representing Department of Administration Director Richard Licht; and Kate Telford and Brien Brothman, both from the secretary of state’s office.

During the final selection process, the commission was advised by artist Gretchen Dow Simpson, designer Libby Slader and former Deputy Secretary of State Ray Rickman, all members of the arts council.

The work will now be turned over to the Department of Administration, which will be responsible for hanging the work among other gubernatorial portraits in the State House, with the advice of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission and the Rhode Island State House Restoration Society.

Gearan, a Providence resident, is a recipient of several awards, including a 2007 Merit Award Fellowship in Painting from the arts council. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Roger Williams University, and has taught at the University of Rhode Island, the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago and at Indiana University campuses in Florence, Italy, and Bloomington, Ind. Her work is in several private collections, and she has exhibited work in Rhode Island and throughout the country.

She earned her B.F.A. at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University. She also studied for two years at the Rome campus of Temple University and at the Yale University Summer School for the Arts.

“Commissioning a portrait of a governor is an important event in the life of Rhode Island,” said Randall Rosenbaum, director of the arts council. “Art is the way society preserves its history. Great art tells a great story, and walking through the halls of the state house, you experience the history of Rhode Island.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here