Margot 12th Portrait: Agnes Grochulska 2024
Just like Margot’s 10th portrait, her 12th portrait another artist who I only have one piece in our collection. The reason for just one, the painting at the time was still in my realm of spending. I think I’ve been talking with Agnes Grochulska since 2020 about doing a portrait, But I purchased my first piece of her work back in 2018. I’ve been following her work well before then. Initially I wanted to have her do Paley’s portrait but I wanted her to do Margot first.
We shot the reference shots for this portrait in May of 2024 at the Roman Garden at Stanford University with our friend Rachel. We came across two large brozen sculptures that were perfect situated up large oak trees, providing much needed shade on that hot day. Agnes began work on the piece right after receiving the final reference photos. What drew me to Agnes work, is in person, the artwork presents like its almost organic on the canvas. What makes it organic, is moving close to the painting, you can immediately see her technique of layering and color mixing the paint to create the image.
The goal here was to capture Margot in this moment in the reference shot and I think Agnes really succeeded with this challenge. From Margot’s face, even down to the dress she was wearing in the picture. A lot of times, artists choose to change the clothing the kids wear when they are doing the portrait. I think about 50% of the time there is a change. When Agnes reached out with the photos she really liked, there were two directions she wanted to go. One with Margot sitting and one with Margot standing in the woods. Margot and I loved both positions and decided to let Agnes make the choice.
Margot was excited this piece to come together, when we were chatting with Agnes, she was very curious about her process of creating the lines and mixed colors in the painting. When we started receiving progress images from Agnes, Margot lit up like a fire She wanted to see a lot more.
If you Google Agnes Grochlska’s work, you will see an amazing amount of portraitures that have blessed the art world. When you slide through all of the under sketch images for the piece (above), you can see the method of her process. It’s very easy to see Margot’s through all of those lines. As she began to work on the piece, you can see that Agnes doesn’t do a lot of underpainting. Instead, the layering of the color and paint build up those undertones for the final layer that makes the painting jump out at you. Working with Agnes has been amazing, the piece truly is a work of art and an amazing addition to our collection. Margot loves this portrait, and is excited to pick the artist for her 13th portrait.
These two 12year portraits is an end of an era for me, with this whole process of having the kids portraits done. At 13, I started letting Paley have the final say so on the artist selection. I still curate a list of options for them to look at because while they might like an artist they find online, there are certain factors to consider. From the current commission rate the artist charges and as we get back to normal, many artists are moving back to in-person commissions only. There is one amazing artist I am hoping to hire in summer of 2026 to do a family portrait for us. I’ve been a fan of his working since the late 90’s, and I think the kids will be at an old enough age, to find commission a family portrait. Although, we have commissioned holiday card portraits in the past. Remember the need point card? Just search needlepoint on the blog and you will find it.