Bernard Safran

Bernard Safran (June 3, 1924 – October 14, 1995) was an American painter known for his realistic portraits and scenes of everyday life in New York and in rural Canada.

He created many portraits for Time magazine covers, with subjects that included Elizabeth II, Pope John XXIII, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Safran was born in 1924 in New York City.

His parents were emigrants from Russia.

At an early age Safran showed artistic abilities.

He studied at the High School of Music & Art in New York, and later at the Pratt Institute.

During World War II (1939–45) Safran joined the United States Army Corps of Engineers and served in China, Burma and India.

After the war, in 1946 Safran start to work as a freelance book jacket illustrator for western and mystery novels.

He spent six months in the mid-1950s studying and copying work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by old masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez and Rembrandt.

A sample title is Nightclub Sinner by Harry Whittington (New York, 1954).

Wayward Girl, A Shocking Expose of Youth Gone Wild by Doug Duperroult (1954) is another example.

He also illustrated magazine articles, such as Stand by for Danger in the April 1954 issue of Boys' Life, one of many stories he illustrated for that magazine.

The work paid reasonably well, but he became dissatisfied with it and decided to become a serious artist.

Safran worked as an illustrator for Time from 1957 to 1966.

Other illustrators of Time covers during this period, which has been called the golden age of Time covers, included Boris Artzybasheff, Robert Vickrey, James Ormsbee Chapin and Boris Chaliapin.

Safran's covers included works such as Kenya's Tom Mboya, in which he showed a dreamy-eyed Mboya dressed in coat and tie in front of a white settler on one side and a native African on the other, with Mount Kenya in the background.

His illustration of President Eisenhower shows Eisenhower in front of a diagram depicting ties between Washington, London, Paris and Bonn, representing the military–industrial complex.

He depicted Cuba's Che Guevara for the August 8, 1960, edition and [Pope] John XXIII for the January 4, 1963, edition.

After he had left Time Magazine, Saffran spent almost twenty years painting over forty genre scenes of everyday life in Manhattan, typically portraying the strength of ordinary people living in decaying urban settings.

His subjects included the poor, prostitutes, working people and old people.

He also took many casual photographs of public life in the city.

In 1964 Safran made a painting of Medea, a modern interpretation of the tragic Greek infanticide from the play of that name by Euripides.

A well-dressed middle-class housewife stares at the viewer, with one arm around each of her two sons.

The boys gaze up at their mother.

The powerful painting conveys a sense of sadness and menace through Medea's expression alone, with no obvious clues such as a weapon.

The model for the mother was a close friend of the family, and the boys were neighborhood children.

The painting was first shown at the Fitzgerald Gallery in New York City in 1966, part of a show of works by Safran on themes from mythology and the Bible.

In 1973 Safran moved with his family to a farmhouse outside of Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

For the next 20 years he created paintings of working life in rural Canada.

Safran died of a heart attack on October 14, 1995, at his home in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

He was survived by his wife, Adele, two daughters and four grandchildren.

Safran's work was exhibited in New York and Washington galleries.

Portraits that were published as Time magazine covers included:

Unpublished portraits for Time magazine covers included: