‘Portrait of Delores’
October 16th, 2011
‘Portrait of Delores’
Oil on linen
64×54″
Collection of the artist
© 2009 Henk Pander
Henk Pander met Delores Rooney in 1978 at the Portland Dance Theater, where he was designing a set and she was on the staff. Partners for many years, they married in 2004. Delores Pander died in 2010. Over the years, Henk made numerous drawings and paintings of Delores and in the last months of her life painted several large portraits. This one portrays her with a book by Ursula Le Guin, for whom she was an editorial assistant, and a ceramic vase made by Delores’s granddaughter Maryalice, who was raised by the Panders. To the left is a vignette of the front of the Panders’ house, which Delores owned before she knew Henk. Martha Ullman West in her tribute to Delores Pander states that “her favorite color was the deep, dark red that saturates [this] painting.”
~ Roger Hull
Professor Emeritus, Art History, Willamette University
Senior Faculty Curator, Hallie Ford Museum of Art
