WAR PAINT
Robert Griffing's Latest Painting

WQED Multimedia is producing a four-part documentary that will bring to life the French and Indian War, a fascinating yet little-understood conflict. Produced and filmed locally, the production is an important, regional economic-development project. "The War That Made America" is planned for broadcast on Wednesdays Jan. 18 and 25, 9-11 p.m.

In the early '80s, Robert Griffing was working in advertising but pursuing his passion for painting on the side. By the time he retired from his 30-year-long career as an art director, his paintings depicting Eastern Woodland Indians and Great Lakes Indians during the mid-1700s began to attract a following.

The painting depicts the wounding of Gen. Edward Braddock. Featured in the foreground are Braddock and a young George Washington, who served as an aide-de-camp at the time, as well as several other contemporaries who would have been on the scene of Braddock's death. The background of the painting is richly detailed, including two Native American scouts and Braddock's troops at camp. "The piece is 50 by 72 inches," says Griffing. "It's the largest painting, square-inch-wise, I've ever done and probably the most ambitious. It took a lot of research and a lot of drawing because there's so much going on in the painting."

To create his meticulously detailed paintings, Griffing uses models for both people and settings. On the set of WQED Multimedia's upcoming documentary "The War That Made America," he found models for this painting: actor Alex Coleman and Larry Nehring, who play Braddock and Washington respectively.

"When I first saw them, I thought these guys are right-on-the-money. We really don't know what Braddock looked like back then, but we do have an old painting that was a profile. When I saw [Coleman and Nehring], I thought, "Wow, these guys are really good, and I definitely want them for my painting. "

Griffing points out that this piece is a divergence from his favorite subject matter, Native Americans in scenes that show the detail of their faces and their situations. Nonetheless, he is enthusiastic about his newest work. "It's great to be living during this time when these 250th anniversaries are coming," Griffing says, "not only for the painters but for the re-enactors and history buffs, anyone who has any interest in history at all. It should be a really exciting time. "

This painting was commissioned by the Laurel Foundation as a gift to the people of southwestern Pennsylvania, and will become part of the permanent collection at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. For more information on Robert Griffing's work, call Paramount Press at 716/789-9404. For details, visit the website .

< Previous Article Next Article >

< Back to Main Page