Royalty, Philanthropists and Arts Patrons gather to celebrate “Juan Bastos: California Portraits” exhibit at Denenberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles

The “Juan Bastos: California Portraits” exhibition of 40 portraits of prominent Californians painted by the Bolivian-American artist was on show at a private lunch on November 2nd, hosted by Stuart and Beverly Denenberg of the Denenberg Fine Arts gallery in West Hollywood. Photographs from the lunch can be viewed here.

Amongst those attending the lunch at the gallery were: HRH Princess Michael of Kent visiting from London with lady-in-waiting Lyn Rothman, Consul General of Bolivia Marco Valverde, actress Carla Ortiz, actor Renaldo Pacheco, Holly Palance, and Prince Veriand Windisch-Graetz. Guests with portraits in the show were: Audrey Bahr, Maryl Georgi, Nehama Jacobs, Synne Miller and poodle Baloo, actress Patricia Morison, Lawrence Platt, Valerie Sobel, Carol Shapiro, and Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson.

The Bastos retrospective exhibit portraits were painted in California from 1996 to 2017. Bastos moved to the US from Bolivia over thirty years ago. A few of the guests at lunch who lent their portraits wore the same clothes they had worn for the painting. Synne Miller, who brought her poodle, Baloo, to the lunch, explained that Bastos added her poodle into the portrait later.

HRH Princess Michael of Kent toured the exhibit with Bastos and admired the portraits of art collectors, families with children, dogs, and even a rabbit.

The Arts & Culture section of the New York Times has featured Bastos as one of the few artists working today to be recognized in the re-emergence of traditional portraiture.

The Denenberg Fine Arts gallery retrospective exhibit of the Bolivian-American portrait artist Juan Bastos hosted a private lunch on November 2nd. The exhibit, Juan Bastos: California Portraits, opens on November 4^th with an invitation-only reception and then runs for two weeks, starting November 5^th, as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA – Latin American & Latino Art in LA.

The Juan Bastos exhibit brings together a collection of 40 oil paintings, pastels, and pencil drawings of distinguished Californians and other commissions, painted and drawn by Bastos from 1996 to 2017. Bastos has lived and worked in Los Angeles for 22 years.

Portraits of Richard Harrison, Sir Ian McKellen, the children of Jimmy and Vicki Iovine, Rudolph Nureyev, Patricia Morison, Lawrence Platt, Don Bachardy, Dr. Alan Shabo, Valerie Sobel, Susan Sontag, Charlize Theron, Gore Vidal, Maria Vidal, Andrew and Erna Viterbi, and Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson will be amongst the portraits on exhibit.

Juan Bastos: California Portraits is part of the Participating Gallery Program of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty.

Juan Bastos is a Bolivian-American who has lived and worked in Los Angeles for 22 years. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958, Juan and his family returned to Bolivia, their homeland, 11 years later. He came to the United States where he enrolled at Georgetown University in 1979. He later obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from Towson University.