克莱门夫妇肖像揭幕式（The Unveiling Ceremony for the Portrait of Mr.& Mrs. Clement)

中美文化艺术交流空间

地点：美国马里兰州豪尔德学院理工大楼正厅

时间：2025年3月16日美国东部时间上午9:30-11:00点

金元淑、克莱门夫妇肖像 （Portrait of Wonsook Kim & Thomas Clement ）

本人今年所作“克莱门夫妇肖像画” （Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Clement ) 于2025年3月16日正式揭幕。

克莱门夫妇是美国大慈善家，为我执教的大学捐了巨款，前年建成的理工教学大楼以夫妇二人名字命名。我作的肖像画将在此楼永久陈列。这件近作是学校收藏本人的第五件肖像。

湯姆士. 克莱门生于韩国 ，是韩战遗孤，从小饱经磨难，后为美国夫妇收养返美，因天资聪颖，学业事业均有大成，财务自由后，全力返馈社会，捐赠不少高校予巨资，与夫人一道成为美国著名慈善家。克太太金元淑也来自韩国，是一位韩裔艺术家，曾主攻陶艺，后转向于架上绘画。她作品的风格介乎于超现实主义与抽象表现主义之间，且有深厚的东方审美意趣。

克莱门夫妇的双人肖像花了我近两月时间。依本人专业经验，为此二位作肖像，本应有一挥而就的顺畅，但创作的过程却跌宕起伏，一波三折，算是我艺术创作中很少遇到的挑战。

若依肖像画这一行当的古例，艺术家首先应与模特互动，做不少事前功课，画不少速写构图，然后选定构图，开始画些较为深入的素描稿和色彩小样，为最终作品定稿。但时至高速生活节奏的当下，这类名人肖像的主体很难再有古典时期一唱三叹的闲暇。萨金特面对模特直接作画时悠哉由哉，从容不迫写生的奢侈似不复存在，艺术家只得利用今天发达的照相技术，省略了早期的功课和程序，照像机和PS软件因此成了得力的助手。科技带来的便利，对于肖像画家而言，反应亦是喜忧参半。

这件双人肖像画的挑战当然来自克莱门夫人，作为一位很有主见的艺术家，克夫人对画作要求极高，且有不少个人的艺术判断，克莱门先生因宠妻而全部放权，全由太太作断。我因此为此件作品专程携摄影师去克莱门夫妇家中拍了几十张照片，弄了近十几个草图方案，均不入克夫人法眼。在这过程中我一度差点放弃，但最终由她找出的三张不同的旧照片拼出了定稿草图。其原始图片剪自不同的场景，像素奇低、非常粗糙。幸好我擅长PS软件，花了不少时间，总算将草图作了出来。背景的抽象画是金元淑本人的得意之作，图片是拍自她在韩国做展览时的场景。她曾力主我将展厅场景还原，甚至背景墙上的柱头都不能省略。在最终完成的作品中，我费尽心机将此墙柱虚化，使其不至喧宾夺主。因此这件作品完成的过程是在我肖像画创作生涯中，难度奇高的经历。不过，最终夫妇二人来我画室见到完成的作品时，欣喜异常，作品能得他们最后的认可，也算是功德圆满。

或许，这种经历也是不少商业性艺术家们经常不得面临的尴尬和悖论。一般情况下，肖像画家一方面必须满足服务对象的需求，将客户做适度的美化，另一方面又希望不失去绘画的艺术性表达。因此，大多数艺术家持中庸之道而为之。能达至最佳的平衡者，萨金特算是此道中最为成功的模范，他的肖像作品件件养眼的同时，用笔用色大方稳准，艺术性极强。反之，伦勃朗的遭遇则为相反的极端案例，朗爷为了艺术，奋不顾身，倾心而作的一幅“夜巡图”群像在艺术表现达到极高的段位的同时，此画也成了他肖像创作生涯中的滑铁卢，朗爷在此件大作中追求完美的艺术性惹恼了群像中不少位居次位的金主，这些艺术庸众们的不买单，不但让朗爷失去了后续的订件，而且因此画在当时巨商大贾客户群中造成负面的影响，让朗爷从此贫困潦倒，惨渡余生。不过，朗爷的这件倾心大作“夜巡图”却成了千古绝唱，一件难得的世界顶级名画，荷兰皇家美术舘的镇舘之宝。



如果将萨金特流光宝气、贵气十足的肖像画与朗爷作品相比，可立判高下。伦勃朗老爷子的肖像作品无论是思想深度或是艺术的表达，明显高出萨哥的帅哥美女作。可见绘画作品的思想性和艺术性才是使艺术品永生的主因。

本人才智平庸，眼高手低，只求一步一脚印，将所作之画弄得能神形兼备，养眼怡情，就很满足。这件作品成功与否，留给观众作断。自己余下艺术大梦的追逐，只能留给日后每一次的创作……。

甘一飞

2025年3月30日 作记

揭幕式现场

揭幕式现场

副校长致辞（比上次着装更为正式）

揭幕前

揭幕一瞬

揭幕一瞬

揭幕一瞬

揭幕一瞬

克莱门夫妇与肖像留影

克莱门夫妇与肖像留影

克莱门夫妇与肖像留影

艺术家与画中人

艺术家与画中人

校长与克夫人

校长威利丝、克莱门夫妇与本人

校长威利丝、克莱门夫妇与本人

校长威利丝、克莱门夫妇与本人

校长与肖像

克夫人致辞

本人与克莱门先生

本人与克莱门先生

气质欠费的艺术家

人文学院副院长余洋和刘玉兰教授前来为我助威

哥们姐们前来助阵

哥们姐们前来助阵

校长、学校公关部行政人员与克菜门夫妇合影

萨娜Sarah原是我的学生，才华出众，现为学校专业摄影师，每次出行拍肖像，萨娜必随行

本人完成此件，心情好极

落成的肖像

如下为创作过程纪录：

草图

创作过程中

创作过程中

克莱门夫妇在我画室

金元淑、克莱门夫妇肖像 （Portrait of Wonsook & Thomas Clement ）完成稿

特别鸣谢：萨娜 (Sarah),周晋民先生、陈竞飞、刘玉兰女士等朋友们的现场摄影

The Unveiling Ceremony

for

The portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Clement

Yifei Gan

March 30, 2025

The portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Clement that I made this year was officially unveiled on February 27, 2025.

The Clements are great American philanthropists who donated a huge sum of money to the university where I teach. The science and engineering building built two years ago was named after the couple. My portrait will be permanently exhibited in this building. This recent work is the fifth portrait of me collected by the school.

Thomas Clement was born in South Korea. He is an orphan of the Korean War. He suffered a lot since childhood. Later, he was adopted by an American couple and returned to the United States. Because of his natural intelligence and hard working , he achieved great success in his studies and career. After financial independence, he gave back to the society with all his strength and donated huge sums of money to many universities. Together with his wife, he became a famous American philanthropist. Ms. Kim Won-sook is also from South Korea. She is a Korean artist who once focused on ceramics and later turned to painting. The style of her works is between surrealism and abstract expressionism, and has a deep oriental aesthetic connotation.

It took me about two months to complete the couple's portrait. According to my professional experience, painting portraits for these two people should be smooth and easy, but the creative process faces many challenges.

According to the old practice of portraiture, the artist should first interact with the model, do a lot of preliminary homework, draw a lot of quick sketches, and then select the composition, start to draw some more in-depth sketches and color samples to finalize the final work. But nowadays, with the fast pace of life, it is difficult for the subjects of such celebrity portraits to have the leisure time of the classical period. Sargent's leisurely painting directly in front of the model and the luxury of carefully sketching no longer exist. We can only use today's advanced photography technology to omit the early homework and procedures, and the camera and PS software have become a powerful assistant.

The challenge of this double portrait painting certainly came from Mrs. Clement, as a very opinionated artist Mrs. Clement had extremely high expectations for paintings and had many personal artistic judgments. Mr. Clement doted on his wife and gave up all power, leaving it to his wife to make all the decisions. Therefore, for this work, I took a photographer to their homes to take dozens of photos and made nearly a dozen sketches, but none of them met Mrs. Clement's standards. During this process, I almost gave up, but in the end she found three different old photos and pieced together the final sketch. Her original pictures were cut from different scenes, with very low resolution and very rough. Fortunately, I am good at PS, and after spending a lot of time, I finally made the sketch. The abstract painting in the background was taken by Kim when he had an exhibition in South Korea. She had urged me to restore the scene in the exhibition hall and even the background. The column on the wall cannot be omitted. In the final work, I took great effort to blur the wall column so that it would not dominate the main subject and affect the main body of the portrait. Therefore, the process of completing this work was an extremely difficult experience in my portrait painting career. However, in the end, the couple came to my studio to see the finished work and were extremely impressed by my work. It eventually became a perfect happy ending .

Perhaps this is also the paradox of commercial portrait painter has to face. Under normal circumstances, artist have to meet the needs of the client on the one hand and on the other hand, they cannot lose the artistic expression or artistic effect, so they can only do it in a balance way. John Singer Sargent is a successful example in this way. Rembrandt is an extreme case on the contrary. For the sake of art, his group portrait of "Night Watch" became the Waterloo of his portrait creation. Not only did he lose subsequent orders, but he also spent the rest of his life in poverty. However, his "Night Watch" became a masterpiece of the ages and a world-famous painting that is unique in the ages.

I have high expectations in my artistic endeavors, but always feel there are big spaces for improvement. If I can make my paintings to have both life essence and artistic expression, I then will be very happy. Of course, hope I can do better next time ...