Storyteller: Artist Mort Kunstler

"I don't paint battle scenes. Each painting is just a slice of life.  I'm a storyteller," explained Mort Kunstler smiling as he graciously answered questions from patrons at the Nassau County Museum of Art on Sunday. 

With his left hand, he stylishly scrawled "M Kunstler" connecting the M to the K onto his latest book,

Kunstler is praised for bringing a new wave of interest to Civil War art and for having a perfectionist's eye for detail with rich colors and use of light. His visual view of American history is considered legendary.   

This unique exhibit shares the creative thought process including preliminary sketches with his written comments on historical moments and artistic techniques.

Many of the 60 or so paintings, on display from now at the Museum until January 9, 2011, are from Kunstler's collection and various private and public collections.  As a world-renowned artist, his masterpieces have been shown in galleries and museums all over America.

Exhibit patrons, Andrea and Kevin McGrath of Northport thoroughly enjoyed the show and were intrigued with the people in his works. 

"Do you ever paint family members or anyone you know in your paintings?" asked Andrea.  "Everyone's so good looking and every face has so much emotion.  I wondered if they were of people you knew personally?"

Kunstler flipped pages to the painting "Candlelight and Roses: Stuart at the Culpeper Ball, June 4, 1863," and said, "my wife is here and here," pointing to two different women in lilac dresses.  "And this my secretary,"  Kunstler said.  "I don't usually do that because it takes too long and added months to the process."

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson says of Kunstler's work, as noted on the jacket flap, "none captures the human element, the aura of leadership, the sense of being there and sharing the drama, quite like Mort Kunstler."

"During the first 1998 exhibition, The Civil War: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, we broke attendance records with thousands of visitors," said Julius Harris, weekend coordinator for the Nassau County Museum for twenty years.  "This is his third show with us and his Civil War art is just magical.  His art is an expression of his love." 

That love began at three years old when he started sketching.  Kunstler graduated from Pratt Institute and also studied at Brooklyn College and U.C.L.A.  He became a successful illustrator in New York creating covers for Newsweek, Saturday Evening Post, Mad Magazine and Boy's Life and movie posters for the original 'Poseidon Adventure' and 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.'  While creating illustrations for National Geographic, he worked closely with historians where he says, "I learned to value accuracy." 

As a premier American historical artist, who has painted 5,000 paintings from prehistoric American life to the Space Shuttle, Kunstler has been focusing on the American Civil War since 1982 when CBS-TV commissioned him to do a painting for the mini-series "The Blue and The Gray." 

He details descriptions about creating paintings like "Last Tribute of Respect," showing the funeral for Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson, "the center of interest in the painting is the casket," he explained on his website. "To achieve the pageantry of the scene, I felt it necessary to pull back my viewpoint, thus making the coffin smaller.  By using age old artistic devices (darkest dark against lightest light), I made the eye go where I wanted it to go."

"I think of myself like the way a pitcher tries to trick a catcher," he says of his painting selections. "If I've been painting a night scene in the snow, my next painting will be in daylight with lots of action or pageantry. "

Kunstler, who resides in Oyster Bay, continues to paint Civil War paintings saying the process evolved organically. 

"People send me a lot of things—authors send books and I get emails for sources," he said. "Who knows what I might do next."

When asked what his favorite painting is, he replied, "It's always the one I'm currently painting." 

Kunstler's paintings are on exhibit at the Museum Nassau County Museum of Art. For more information on Kunstler and his works, please visit his website.