The Dakota, 72nd Street, New York City

This is an original drawing in pencil. The paper is not white, it has been tinted with watercolor to a light tan similar to the trim color of the building. This style of drawing is considered an architectural rendering. The drawing measures 9.125" x 12.25"

The subject is famous Dakota apartment building in upper Manhattan, this is the 72nd street entrance. It has been rendered with an hb pencil on hot press watercolor paper. Under the tint are two coats of white gesso for luminosity. This drawing is signed and dated across the bottom, Richard Britell March 2012

Some information about this famous building:

The Dakota, constructed from October 25, 1880 to October 27, 1884, is a co-op apartment building located on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, at 1 West 72nd Street, New York, NY 10023.

The architectural firm of Henry Janeway Hardenbergh was commissioned to create the design for Edward Clark, head of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. The firm also designed the Plaza Hotel.

The building's high gables and deep roofs with a profusion of dormers, terracotta spandrels and panels, niches, balconies, and balustrades give it a North German Renaissance character, an echo of a Hanseatic townhall. Nevertheless, its layout and floor plan betray a strong influence of French architectural trends in housing design that had become known in New York in the 1870s.

According to often repeated stories, the Dakota was so named because at the time it was built, the Upper West Side of Manhattan was sparsely inhabited and considered as remote as the Dakota Territory. However, the earliest recorded appearance of this account is in a 1933 newspaper story. It is more likely that the building was named "The Dakota" because of Clark's fondness for the names of the new western states and territories. High above the 72nd Street entrance, the figure of a Dakota Indian keeps watch. The Dakota was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Fear of Gypsies

This is a work in progress. Julia Britell is the model, but the features have been adjusted to fit the idea of the painting. When Julia was a child she was afraid of gypsies. This fear was aggravated by the fact that she liked to listen to the song, "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O". In the painting the dress represents the idea of the Gypsies, or at another level, all of the infinite influences over time, that compose a personality.

This is in the under painting stage, and when finished will measure 64" x 18", or life sized. Oil on canvas, May, 2010, Richard Britell

Richard Britell, "Fox and Parking Meter", oil on canvas 30" x 48", February, 2010

Things in this painting:  A red fox, two urns, a parking meter, a fire hydrant, and a parked car.  The parked car is out of focus, and the hydrant is blocked out by the urn.  These are all various parts of a banister, an imaginary banister on the top of an imaginary building.  Down below are crowds of imaginary people rushing too and fro, along Fifth Avenue, just two blocks south of the Metropolitan Museum.  

I would like to say a few things about the symbolism of this painting.  First of all there is the red fox, which is a symbol of a fox.  Then comes the parking meter, which is a symbol of a parking meter.  You can figure out the symbolism of the urns for yourself, but i will give you this clue.  They are either very large urns in which can be grown those wonderful dwarf orange trees, or they are funeral urns.

Now I would like to say something about my procedures in doing this painting.  Before I began I consulted the very best animal painting that I know of, which is Durer’s portrait of a rabbit;  I am sure you know the one.  I looked at this very carefully and I noted that the rabbit is painted in such a way that you can practically see every single hair on its body.  This was a rabbit who was willing to spend a long time posing , in daylight, standing stock still for his portrait to be done.  This was exactly what i did not want to do in my painting.  I wanted my fox to look like one of those foxes you see running along the side of the road, at night, and you only get to see a little light glinting along the edge of his eye, as he bounds along in the darkness.  For this sort of thing one has to consult Caravaggio, or perhaps the x-files, where things are sucked up in shadow, or obscured by mist.

Portrait of Amy Climo, from directions of Cennini

click image to enlargeRichard Britell "Amy Climo" acrylic and silver point on copper panel, 8" x 5.5" 2010

From "The Crafteman's Handbook", of Cennino Cennini

How you Should Regulate Your Life in the Interests of Decorum and the Condition of Your Hand; And in What Company; And What Method You Should First Adopt for Copying a Figure From High Up .
Chapter XXVIIII
Your life should always be arranged just as if you were studying theology, or philosophy, or other theories, that is to say, eating and drinking moderately, at least twice a day, electing digestible and wholesome dishes, and light wines; saving and sparing your hand, preserving it from such strains as heaving stones, crowbar, and many other things which are bad for your hand, from giving them a chance to weary it. There is another cause which, if you indulge it, can make your hand so unsteady that it will waver more, and flutter far more, than leaves do in the wind, and this is indulging too much in the company of woman.
Always go out alone, or in such company as will be inclined to do as you do, and not apt to disturb you. And the more understanding this company displays, the better it is for you. When you are in churches or chapels, and beginning to draw, consider, in the first place, from what section you think you wish to copy a scene or figure; and notice where its darks and half tones and high lights come; and this means that you have to apply your shadow with washes of ink; to leave the natural ground in the half tones; and to apply the high lights with white lead.
First take the charcoal, slender, and sharpened like a pen, or like your style; and, as the prime measurement which you adopt for drawing, adopt one of the three which the face has, for it has three of them altogether: the forehead, the nose, and the chin, including the mouth. And if you adopt one of these, it serves you as a standard for the whole figure, for the buildings and from one figure to another; and it is a perfect standard for you provided you use your judgment in estimating how to apply these measurements. And the reason for doing this is that the scene or figure will be too high up for you to reach it with your hand to measure it off. You have to be guided by judgment; and if you are so guided, you will arrive at the truth. And if the proportion of your scene or figure does not come out right at the first go , take a feather, and rub with the barbs of this feather--chicken or goose, as may be--and sweep the charcoal off what you have drawn. That drawing will disappear. And keep starting it over from the beginning until you see that your figure agrees in proportion with the model. And then, when you feel that it is about right, take the silver style and go over the outlines and accents of your drawings, and over the dominant folds, to pick them out. When you have got this done, take the barbed feather once more, and sweep the charcoal off thoroughly; and your drawing will remain, fixed by the style.
How You should Draw and Shade with Washes on Tinted Paper, and Then Put Lights on With White Lead.
Chapter XXXI
When you have mastered the shading, take a rather blunt brush; and with a wash of ink in a little dish proceed to mark out the course of the dominant folds with this brush; and then proceed to blend the dark part of the fold, following its course. And this wash ought to be practically like water, just a little tinted, and the brush ought to be almost always practically dry. Without trying to hurry, go on shading little by little, always going back with this brush into the darkest areas. Do you know what will come of it? --If this water is just a little tinted, and you shade with enjoyment, and without hurrying, you will get your shadows well blended, just like smoke. Remember always to work with the flat of the brush. When you have gone as far as you can with this shading, take a drop or two of ink and put it into this wash, and mix it up well with this brush. And then in the same way pick out the very bottoms of those folds with this brush, picking out their foundations carefully; always remembering your shading, that is, to divide into three sections: one section, shadow; the next, the color of your ground; the next, with lights put on it. When you have got this done, take a little white lead well worked up with gum Arabic. [I will explain this to you later on, how this gum is to be dissolved and melted: and I will explain about all the temperas.] Ever so little white lead in the little dish, especially if this is dried up. Then dress it on the back of your hand or your thumb, shaping and squeezing out this brush, and getting it empty, practically draining it. And begin rubbing the brush flat over and into the areas where the high light and relief are to come; and proceed to go over them many times with your brush, and handle it judiciously. Then, for the accents of the reliefs, in the greatest prominence, take a pointed brush, and touch in with white lead with the tip of this brush, and crisp up the tops of these high lights. Then proceed to crisp up with a small brush, with straight ink, marking out the folds, the outlines, noses, eyes, and the divisions in the hairs and beards.
How You may Put on Lights with Washes of White Lead Just as You Shade with Washes of Ink.
Chapter XXXII
I advise you, furthermore, when you get to be more experienced, to try to put on lights perfectly with a wash, just as you do the wash of ink. Take white lead ground with water, and temper it with yolk of egg; and it blends like an ink wash, but it is harder for you to handle, and more experience is needed. All this is known as drawing on tinted paper, and it is the path to lead you to the profession of painting. Follow it constantly as much as you can, for it is the essence of your study. Apply yourself to it enthusiastically, and with great enjoyment and pleasure.

A Berkshire Sampler

I call this drawing a Berkshire sampler because it contains nine small sketches of things or places in Berkshire County that are particularly interesting or beautiful. Berkshire County is in Western Massachusetts. It is a summer resort area with many very serious cultural attractions, especially in the category of preforming arts. Tanglewood is here, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Tanglewood, as it’s name implies, is a huge area of beautifully landscaped grounds with gentile hills, large meadows, and ancient trees of great beauty. It not a manicured beauty, but a beauty rough about the edges just like a Hudson River School painting, which it is really connected to geographically.

Looking at my drawings left to right from the top: The first image is Hawthorne Street looking South. The big hedge of bushes on the left is .over twelve feet high and forms the border of the Tanglewood property. Out of the hedge rises a large tree part way down the road, this is the Lion’s Gate entrance to the grounds, so named because of the lion sculptures on top of flanking pedestals at the entrance. This view is especially interesting because it contains the entrance to the grounds used by non-paying teenagers, attending popular music concerts. At the extreme left bottom of the hedge is a little tunnel through the hedge which also passes safely through two chain link fences which run down the center of the hedge. I have never used this entrance, my daughters pointed it out to me one day.

The second image is one of the lion faces from the lion’s gate entrance. The third image is what you see if you look to the right when you are looking at image number one. This is the view looking South from Hawthorne Street. Here the land falls sharply away cut by rows of trees at intervals which were formerly the borders of farmers fields. These big fields are also giant parking lots whenever there is a concert. There are three of these big grassy fields bordered by trees and then your eye gets to Stockbridge Bowl, a very round lake that can be seen right in the middle of the drawing. After the lake the landscape rises up again with a series of receding hills. It is just this tendency of the landscape here, to rise up and down, cut by open fields and variegated patched of various types and colors of trees that makes this landscape so famous for it’s beauty. It is really like the Isle of the Sirens in the Tale of Odysseus, once you see it you can’t tear yourself away from it.

Hawthorne Street, of the first three images, is so named because at one time Nathaniel Hawthorne lived there. I decided to do a drawing of the famous Hawthorne House which is almost directly across from the Lions’ Gate, but I was amazed to find that the original house burned down over a hundred years ago. The house in the drawing is the very next house after where the Hawthorne house once stood. It is a modest little house but one of my favorite houses in Berkshire County. It is old, unpainted stucco, with an orange Mediterranean tile roof. What looks like two entrances is really a door and a symmetrical opening for a porch.

I thought if I made mention of Hawthorne in my set of drawings I should also include another equally famous American author who lived here. In Pittsfield is Arrowhead, the home of Herman Melville. He lived in a large very ordinary looking New England farm house. I went there but could find nothing I wanted to draw. When I was leaving however I came across this very beautiful piece of sky at the back of the visitor parking lot, so I have included that. It is drawing number five, right in the center. Here again, as in the Tanglewood images, the landscape shows the sky to best advantage by dropping down a long way into a valley, and then rising up again in the distance clothed in blue like the sky itself.

The next image is more up to date. This is the Lenox Coffee Shop in the Town of Lenox. This is my favorite place to drink coffee and read a book on a summer afternoon. I am sure there are many people who believe two dollars is too much to pay for coffee but I am not among them. To have an equivalent coffee drinking experience you would absolutely have to fly to someplace in Europe, and that would cost at least $1200 by today’s rates. So every time I have coffee here I feel that i have saved myself a thousand dollars at least, and soon, at the rate I am going, I will be able to buy the little stucco house on Hawthorne Street.

The seventh drawing brings us back to Hawthorne Street again but this time looking North. I put this view in for three reasons, first because it shows how in just one spot there are interesting views in all directions, but also because of a detail. The trees and foliage grow over the road in a full simple arch and the road passes through a tunnel of foliage as it dips and turns around a bend. As an experience, if you are driving, this is equal to the most sophisticated V.W commercial. Also, this view has a hill in the background where once stood the gigantic summer home of Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie estate was called Shadowbrook, and it succumbed to a huge fire long ago just like the Hawthorne house. Carnegie was just another one of a great many famous people past and present who chose to live here, though they could have lived anywhere.

No survey is complete without a restaurant recommendation, and for this I include my favorite. The eighth image is the D’Amico hot dog stand just South of Great Barrington, on Route Seven. This is the best place to eat ,complete with picnic benches of peeling red paint under the shade of five or six towering pines. Across Route Seven, and just a few steps North of the hot dog stand is an old piece of rusting farm equipment, I only noticed it because I was walking up the highway looking for a good place to do the Hot Dog Stand drawing. It is down in a depression and I include it because I was reminded of how there used to be farms and old farm equipment all over this landscape and now there are none, the same is true of the hot dog stand, this is our only one.

Dimensions:7.75” x 9.75”
Materials: Pencil on cream color drawing paper
Signature: Along the bottom edge: Richard Britell, July 27, 2002

2017 Broadway, The Ansonia

I am not a New Yorker. This fact came home to me very vividly the first time I ever entered a gallery in New York hoping to interest it’s director in my work. I chose a gallery which was exhibiting huge images of woman’s heads in black and white, images over eight feet high and six feet wide which filled the windows of their space on Madison Avenue. I went in feeling some trepidation. In a large empty room sat a beautiful foreign looking woman at a huge desk. I walked up to her and said, “I would like to show the gallery director a portfolio of my paintings and drawings.”

She said, “I’m sorry sir, but this isn’t a gallery, it’s a hair salon.”

The above is the truth, it’s the absolute truth. But nevertheless I did manage to have several one person shows in New York City. My first show consisted of only paintings of architecture. There were thirty-two paintings in the show and I sold every one. The show was reviewed in the New York Times by Hilton Cramer. This is an excerpt of what he said.

There are modes of realism in which the depiction
of concrete detail is so concentrated- and so obsessive-
that the visual result bears a distinct esthetic kinship to pictorial
abstraction. Mr. Britell’s subject matter is drawn from the world
of pre-modernist architecture. What he focuses on are the brick
facades,stonework structures and the elegant decorative
embellishments that were once a standard feature of neo-
classic and other historicist styles of American urban
architecture. These he depicts with a great deal of pictorial
force. Often the facade of a building is observed in the kind of
close up view that becomes, in effect, the equivalent of
a geometrical abstract painting. He has a very analytical
eye, and he commands an impressive technique. If there is also an
element of nostalgia in these works it isn’t particularly bothersome.
After all, we all have ample reason to cherish this architecture
today, and Mr. Britell’’s homage to it proves
wholly equal to it’s quality.


The drawing in this listing is an example of what he was talking about.

Fear Of Flying

I flew to Europe once. The plane took off at dinner time and by two in the morning we were somewhere over the mid-Atlantic. I was very afraid of flying and sat wide awake, staring out of the window. I had a seat over the wing. it was a brand new plane, just put into service. I stared intently at the wing, the curve of the engine, the flaps of the wing, the rivets.

A small dark spot appeared on the wing just above the engine. It was very small at first but gradually it got a little bigger. I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but after a while I could see a distinct triangular dark patch on the wing above the engine. But where could a dark patch come from on the wing? Could the engine be heating up the wing because of some malfunction. I decided to wait and see if the dark patch got large enough to cover a certain rivet on the wing. Gradually the dark patch got larger and larger until it covered the rivet and most of a flap.

I went to the back of the plane where a hostess was dozing contentedly sitting on a milk crate. I said, “Can you tell me why there is a dark patch on the wing?” The hostess came to my seat and looked at the wing, then she said, “I don’t know, I’ll go and find out though.”

Then passed a very curious few minutes, which I thought would be my last. I gazed at the sleeping travelers and thought to myself, “I’m the only one that knows that we are all about to..........

But the hostess came back with this explanation. The dark spot was the shadow of the tail fin, cast upon the wing by the light of the moon. It “appeared” because that night there was a total eclipse of the moon, and as the moon emerged from the shadow of the earth it’s light lit up the plane, forming the shadow on the wing.

Hearing that was a big relief!

Dimensions: 5.5” x 7”
Materials: Acrylic paint on gessoed paper
Signature: Along the bottom edge: Richard Britell, July 16, 2002