Portrait Mode Revisited

JP Weaver Collaborates with Veranda Magazine
April 2024

JP Weaver Company has enjoyed an longstanding relationship with Veranda Magazine, a publication which has curated an authoritative presence in style, home, garden and art by showcasing exemplars from exceptional designers, artists, photographers and writers worldwide. The editors reached out to us for collaboration on a feature photo for an upcoming article celebrating London’s great portrait artists from John Singer Sargent to a present new guard of English painters leading a resurgence of this deeply personal art form; this as interest and commissions for portraiture have come roaring back, most likely “a counterbalance to the ubiquity of instant cell phone images”, writes Meg Lukens Noonan.

For inspiration, Veranda’s Associate Editor, Sara Clark offered an old photo of the Print Room at Ireland’s Castletown House featuring a collection of portraits and paintings hung above a fireplace mantle nestled into an arrangement ornamental festoons, ribbons and bows. Our lead designer Stephanie Croce set to the task of curating a composition featuring similar ornamental parts from the JP Weaver Petitsin Collection made from flexible resin.

The article provides some marvelous insights into the current zeitgeist of England’s revival in portrait painting from some of her most prominent artists, many of whom seem to share the same poignant observation: Painting, and the craft of portraiture, offers a pleasing antidote to the juggernaut of digital images that assail us every day. A good painting expresses emotion produced in no small part due to the time required to explore form and color through observation and feeling.

This process is not so dissimilar from our approach with our commissions and projects. And perhaps in some protracted way, we too at JP Weaver are enjoying a similar renaissance in an art form from the past. Many of our clients look to the homes and rooms we create together as something of an oasis and respite from the cacophony and speed of our current culture, ever hurtling us forward. Many times, the wonderful art forms and aesthetics of the past are a welcome remedy.