Portrait of Ayn Rand

Oils on panel
14 x 12"
1999

My favorite author. There is no color photo of this. My reference is a B & W photo on the back of the book "The Early Ayn Rand". It's a photo of her as she looked just having arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union (she was born in Russia), never to return, as she loved the United States passionately even before she got the hell out of the Soviet Union. Drab dress with a little tear, the kind of dress her hear-to-for wealthy family was reduced to after the Soviets destroyed Russia, nationalizing her father's pharmacy. I imagined all the color, and that surely she would have found a way to put some color, a flower or something in that torn dress.

I don't imagine anyone would care about this painting unless they know her story. The greatest author and philosopher in history. Not a pretty woman, but she made a point of making herself attractive as she could during her great life.

By the way her book "Atlas Shrugged" is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club.

My portrait is featured in the new book The Selfish Path to Romance. [link]