Donald Jess Bachardy (born May 18, 1934) is an American

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...

artist. He resides in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

. Bachardy was the partner of

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include ''Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

for over 30 years.

Early life

Born in Los Angeles, California, Bachardy studied at the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art I ...

in Los Angeles and the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London. His first one-man exhibition was held in October 1961 at the Redfern Gallery in London. He met the writer

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...

1953, when he was 18 and Isherwood was 48. They remained together until Isherwood's death in 1986. A number of paperback editions of Isherwood's novels feature Bachardy's pencil portraits of the author. A film about their relationship, titled '' Chris & Don: A Love Story'', was released in 2008.

Work

Bachardy has had many one-man exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco,

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

and New York City. More recently, he exhibited at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, in 2004–2005. His works reside in the permanent collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York, the

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Hono ...

of Art in San Francisco, the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

, the Fogg Art Museum of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

, and the National Portrait Gallery, London. Six books of his work have been published. His life and works are also documented in

Terry Sanders Terry Sanders (born December 20, 1931) is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced a ...

' film ''The Eyes of Don Bachardy''. He collaborated with Isherwood on ''Frankenstein: The True Story'' (1973). His book ''Stars in My Eyes'' (2000), about celebrated people whom he had painted, became a number one best-seller in Los Angeles. Bachardy's most haunting and eloquent published collection, "Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood" in 1990 contains the dying and deceased Isherwood for the last time in his eyes. One of Bachardy's most notable works is the official gubernatorial portrait of Jerry Brown that hangs in the California State Capitol Museum. Most recently, Bachardy made a cameo appearance in the movie ''A Single Man'' (starring

Colin Firth Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the " Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a challenging series of roles, including leading roles in '' A M ...

) based on Isherwood's book of the same name—he portrays a professor in the teacher's lounge, to whom Firth says "Hello. Don." Bachardy told ''Angeleno Magazine'' in their December 2009 issue: "Chris got the idea for that book when he and I were having a domestic crisis. We'd been together 10 years. I was making a lot of trouble and wondering if I shouldn't be on my own. Chris was going through a very difficult period (as well). So he killed off my character, Jim, in the book and imagined what his life would be like without me."

Personal life

Bachardy still lives in his and Isherwood's Santa Monica home (his place of residence for over 50 years), where he paints portraits for gallery shows and on a commission basis. In January 2010 he showed a retrospective of self-portraits (from 1959–2009) at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica. In Fall of 2011, Bachardy exhibited portraits made over the last 40 years depicting artists from Southern California, including

Peter Alexander Peter Alexander may refer to: * Pete Alexander (born Grover Cleveland Alexander; 1887–1950), American baseball player * Peter Alexander (Shakespearean scholar) (1893–1969), professor of English language and literature at the University of Glasgo ...

, Larry Bell,

Billy Al Bengston Billy Al Bengston (June 7, 1934 – October 8, 2022) was an American visual artist and sculptor who lived and worked in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Bengston was probably best known for work he created that reflected California's " ...

, Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, and

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating severa ...

at Craig Krull Gallery in conjunction with the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time. All 33 paintings were purchased by a New York collector on the board of the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

Works

*''Frankenstein: The True Story''. 1973 (with Christopher Isherwood) *''Don Bachardy: Drawings''. Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park 1973 *''October / O.'' Methuen, London 1983 (with Christopher Isherwood), *''One Hundred Drawings''. Twelvetrees Press, Los Angeles 1983 *''70 × 1 Drawings''. Illuminati, 1983 *''Drawings of the male nude'' (including Rick Sandford). Twelvetrees Press, Pasadena 1985, *''Christopher Isherwood: Last drawings''. Faber and Faber, London/Boston 1990, (mit John Russell, Stephen Spender) *''Short cuts: the screenplay''. Capra Press, Santa Barbara 1993 (with Robert Altmann, Frank Barhydt), *''Observant Eye: Portrait Drawings By Don Bachardy''. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996 *''The Portrait''. Imprenta Glorias, Los Angeles 1997 (with Gloria Stuart) *''Stars In My Eyes''. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2000, *''The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy'', edited by Katherine Bucknell. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2014. *''Hollywood''. Glitterati 2014, *''Don Bachardy: Nudes''. Craig Krull Gallery 2017,

Filmography

* '' Frankenstein: The True Story'' (TV Movie 1972 teleplay – writer, with Isherwood) * ''

The Rose Tattoo ''The Rose Tattoo'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1949 and 1950; after its Chicago premiere on December 29, 1950, he made further revisions to the play for its Broadway premiere on February 2, 1951, and its publication by ...

'' (1955 – Passenger in Back Seat of Car) * '' Rich and Famous'' (1981 – Malibu Party Guest) * ''Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country'' (1993 documentary – himself) * ''Chris & Don: A Love Story'' (2007 documentary – himself) * ''Finding Lee Mullican'' (2008 documentary – himself) * '' Huxley on Huxley'' (2009 documentary – himself) * ''

A Single Man ''A Single Man'' is a 2009 American period romantic drama film based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. The directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, the film stars Colin Firth, who was nominated for the Academy ...

'' (2009 film – professor) * ''

Christopher and His Kind ''Christopher and His Kind'' is a 1976 memoir by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood, first printed in a 130-copy edition by Sylvester & Orphanos, then in general publication by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In the text, Isherwood candidly ex ...

'' (2011 TV movie – consultant) * ''Hockney'' (2014 documentary – himself) * ''Truman Capote: Enfant Terrible Der Amerikanischen Literatur'' (2016 TV Movie documentary – himself)

References

External links

The Eyes of Don Bachardy
(American Film Foundation)

Oral history interview with Don Bachardy, 2009 May 21 – Oct 7
from the Smithsonian

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bachardy, Don 1934 births Living people Gay artists LGBT artists from the United States LGBT people from California American portrait painters Artists from Los Angeles Chouinard Art Institute alumni Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Artists from Santa Monica, California 21st-century LGBT people