Recently, Brooklyn-based artist Sharon Sprung completed a large commissioned series of paintings, which included a posthumous portrait of famed American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). For this portrait, Sprung spent many weeks conducting research on Edison, scouring the internet for images, reading biographies and firsthand accounts from people who knew him and studying the clothing of the era. All of this preparation, Sprung explains, was an important way of honoring the past and Edison’s illustrious career. 
Thomas A. Edison, posthumous portrait, oil on panel, 50 x 40"
“Posthumous portraits pose certain tough challenges,” Sprung admits. “In this case, there were very few photographs of Edison, and mostly of bad quality. So, it really calls on all your skills as a painter. I had to use my imagination a lot, in terms of hair and skin coloring.” Edison’s casual, but commanding pose was chosen based on one of the few photographs she found. “I wanted to give him a contemporary presence. He was a brilliant man who forged his own path and the pose depicts his independence. It shows a man who is very self-assured,” she says.
While everyone knows Edison as the man who “invented” (actually just commercialized) the incandescent lightbulb, few people know that he had near total deafness. In fact, he often spoke of his hearing disability as an advantage to his work, as it provided a lack of distraction from the noises around him. Edison earned over a thousand U.S. patents for his inventions over his lifetime—a record that still stands today.
An educator as well as a prolific portrait artist, Sprung has taught both drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy School for the past 20 years. Her works can be found in numerous private and corporate collections around the world, including Princeton University, the Federal Courthouse in New York City and the U.S. House of Representatives. Additionally, she has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy Museum for her work as an artist and an educator.
A longtime supporter of the Portrait Society, Sprung has served as a faculty artist for many of the Society’s annual conferences, and most recently gave a highly engaging online talk from her home studio on the complexity of understanding color, value and chroma in skin tones, for the 2020 annual conference webinar.
This winter, Sharon had several new works on view at Gallery Henoch in New York City, during their Winter Group Show. Her work has been represented by the gallery for more than 30 years. —
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