[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]
REMENICK, Seymour [1923–1999]
Portrait of a Man / “Portrait of Benjamin D. Bernstein”
undated (but probably circa 1950s)
oil on wood panel / 8 inches by 6 inches
Agincourt’s longstanding association with Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley dates from its founding in 1853. The story of those origins is celebrated on “Founders’ Day” but it is also reflected less obviously in the Community Collection. Seymour Remenick‘s portrait of what had been an unidentified subject is one instance. We now know it to have been Ben Bernstein [1907-2003], quite logically a Philadelphia native with a passion for collecting.
Remenick studied art successively at three schools, finally at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (PAFA) where he taught in the 1970s. Diane Huygens (born 1928), daughter of Gerrit and Truus Huygens of rural Grou, studied art in Philadelphia during the 1950s and may have known Remenick as faculty or a fellow student. This portrait comes to us from the Huygens family in memory of their aunt Diane.
The subject is Ben Bernstein.
https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection/item/portrait-benjamin-d-bernstein
Thanks for that bit. Contributions and corrections are always appreciated.
BTW, I wonder if you’ve gathered the “Community Collection” is real–we do posses this delightful work–but the community itself, Agincourt, Iowa, is fictional.