Neil Winokur Portraits and Objects

An exhibit of composite color portraits of Long Island Railroad (LIRR) employees by Neil Winokur (b. 1945, New York City, NY) was on view in New York City’s heavily trafficked Penn Station. In typical Winokur style, each portrait is paired with a job- or hobby-related object of the subject’s choice.

The exhibit, entitled Portraits and Objects, consists of 11 Ilford Cibachrome display transparencies, sized 43.25” x 61.25”. They are installed in light boxes on the walls of a balcony surrounding the LIRR waiting area adjoining Tracks 13 through 17.

Each light box contains a single composite portrait. The subject, posed against a bright background, occupies the left half of each frame, and the object selected by the portrait subject, placed against a background of two contrasting colors, fills the other half. The two halves are separated by a black divider. The portraits include a train engineer, a conductor, a railroad police officer, and a variety of staff and support workers. As in this exhibit, Winokur’s approach to portraiture is to include clues to his sitters’ personalities with objects of interest to them. The relatively large size of the objects in the LIRR exhibit adds a note of humor to the overall impression. Winokur specifies Cibachrome print and transparency materials for all of his color portraiture because of their brilliance.