cohorts-of-creativity-professor-peer-portrait

 The relationship between Czimber and the professors he painted was collegial rather than hierarchical: he was painting peers, which produces a different kind of portrait from one commissioned by an institution. Colleagues don't ask to be made impressive — they ask, implicitly, to be accurately seen, which is a harder brief. These portraits have that quality: people rendered by someone who knew them well enough to skip the flattery and get directly to the thing. The result is closer to a frank conversation than to a formal sitting.