The Peter and Sascha Fong Collection in New York City

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The Peter and Sascha Fong Collection in New York City consists of a group of six oil paintings and two black-and-white pencil drawings.

Fig.1. The Artist's Young Bride Margareta on Her Wedding Day

This painting, with a van Gogh hanging on the wall and a Vermeer jar, mahogany chair back and the partially hidden window, was the author Francis K. Fong's very first attempt at portraiture in oil, circa 1999.

The likeness of his young bride, aged 20, fresh off the Ocean Liner Stockholm from Stockholm, Sweden, and the realism of her yellow dress and the bouquet she holds give testimony to Fong's lifelong love for doodling in black and white from age 6 on.

The reason he never before attempted a portrait in oil was his concern over his inability to use colors.  The concern was borne of Fong's "disagreement" with his painting teacher at Princeton Univcersity.  The teacher wanted Fong to use paint thinners and layers of glazing.  But Fong rejected the teacher's method.  An undergraduate chemistry major, he knew well the harmful effects of the volatile organic solvents.  Also, he argued, the teacher's method was "too cumbersome."  It would be a lot simpler and, certainly a lot freer, to use the oils straight from the tubes.  If need be, he thought, why not use Titanium White to dilute the pure colors?  Among other things, the painter would be able to show off his skills at running the brush strokes on his canvas, otherwise unobtainable had one used paint thinners.   

It turned out that concern was misplaced.  Before he did the painting, he read up - like all aspiring students in painting - on complimentary colors.  Here the purple drapes set off the yellows in Margareta's hair and dress.  The blues in the jar contrast the oranges and reds in the window and the chair.  Altogether the final result is not as amateurish as he'd feared. 


The child Peter in "Peter and Martha," and the lanscape, "A Swedish Lake,"  Figs.2 abd 3, depict the

Fig.2. Peter and Martha

Fig.3. Parked Boat on a Swedish Lake

the Fongs' tranquil life with their three children at their homestead in West Lafayette, and Margareta's childhood haunts in her native homeland.



Fig.4. The rock at Homewood in 1978 (left) and today (right)

The large rock, by which Peter was petting the children's pet kitten, Martha, in 1978, today remains unchanged, Fig.4.  In place of Peter and Martha, we now have a family of deer visiting us every spring and summer.    

But the children are grown up and have left Homewood.  In Fig. 5, Fong did a black-and-white drawing of a scene of Peter's wedding to Alexandra "Sascha" Pitchler in 2006. 

Fig.6. Sascha and Peter's Wedding Day

Fig.6. Wedding Church

Fig.7. The Pacific Coast Near the Hearst Castle, California

On this painting, Fong demonstrated his early theory of painting in oil, which was to paint with the oils straight out of their tubes.  Here he abandoned altogether the use of even his brushes.  He smeared the skies and certain parts of the waters with various shades of blues mixed with Titanium White.  Nearly a decade later, he discovered van Gogh more than a century ago used the same method of painting, i.e., using tubes of oils instead of brushes on a clean canvas.

Fig.8. The Little Prince for Chloe

Fig.9.  Francis after Vincent