Must Love Dogs
By: Marianne Amoss
Photo: Jason Okutake
Excerpt
In 2004, Gil Jawetz and his girlfriend were living in New York; he was working at a new media company, while she was working as a freelance writer. Inspired by her research into Norman Rockwell, he took a figure oil painting class at the Art Students League. He’d been drawing his whole life, secretly filling sketchbooks with drawings of people riding the subway. But that year, he began painting in earnest—often depicting his and his friends’ pets.In 2005, Jawetz and his girlfriend moved back to Baltimore, where he’d attended Hopkins as an undergraduate. Now he works in a small studio off York Road in Homeland, not far from Christine Merrill’s house. (They met while, yes, walking their dogs). His canvases are hung on the walls and propped up on easels, and a few art books—Lucian Freud, Egon Schiele—sit on a bookshelf. Jawetz, who paints with oils, often references their work, and that of others like Rembrandt and Degas, for their well-rendered paintings of dogs. “It’s awesome for me to look at that tradition,” he says. “How did Rembrandt paint a dog? Why did he put it in there? It’s exciting to look at the history of art and not think this is a cheesy, kitschy thing.”
He often paints his own pets—Pete, a white shepherd lab mix he found in a park, and three cats: the Count, Mr. Darcy, and Pepe. Jawetz also does commissioned paintings of other people’s animals. “The techniques [of portraiture] haven’t changed for centuries,” he says. “To some, figurative work is so old-fashioned. But there is an endless amount of figurative imagery to create and explore.” He tries to get to know his subjects before painting them, then communicate their personalities through his technique. His loose brushstrokes impart a sense of motion—an overall idea of the animal, rather than a detailed picture. “It’s the impression rather than the accuracy of form,” he says. “It’s more true to the subject.”
It takes Jawetz four to five weeks to do a commission. He first photographs the pet and meets the family, then does sketches before moving on to canvas—all the while coordinating with the client to make sure the “soul” of the painting is right. “When someone says my dog died or I just adopted [one], I feel it,” he says. “I want to get a sense of where they’re coming from and use that.” Jawetz’s prices, based on size, range from several hundred dollars to about $2,000. Jawetz also works with area rescue organizations, often donating a painting to their fundraising events. “I’m a pet person,” he says. “I wouldn’t do this if I weren’t.”
In 2007, he hung a solo show of dog paintings for the grand opening of the Yellow Dog Tavern in Canton. This month, to celebrate the bar’s one-year anniversary, he’s exhibiting a new series of pet paintings there. Called Human(e) Beings, the show will depict animals with their humans—an attempt to explore that easy-to-feel but hard-to-express pet-owner relationship. “It’s very hard to talk about,” he says. “It’s very intimate. They know you in ways that we probably can’t understand. They would know the most miniscule inflection in your voice or some gesture that you make that you’re not even aware that you do. Trying to capture that relationship is a pretty cool challenge.”
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