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Cyrus Bruce

Cyrus Bruce

Richard Haynes Jr.

 

Artist Richard Haynes Jr.

Richard Haynes Jr. (b. 1949) is a New Hampshire-based artist nationally recognized for his paintings and photographs. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he studied at New York City’s High School of Art & Design and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam era. When he returned home, his middle school teacher encouraged him to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Lehman College (City University of New York), and then a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute (Brooklyn). Until recently, Haynes served as Associate Director of Admissions for Diversity at the University of New Hampshire, where “Higher education is a must” was his key message to prospective students.

Richard Haynes created this portrait of Cyrus Bruce during his artist’s residency at the Governor John Langdon House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. These photographs were taken by Nicolas Hyacinthe during Haynes’s time there. Learn more about Langdon House in the sections below.

These items reflect various stages in Richard Haynes’s working process for a different composition. At left can be seen a color photograph of costumed models whom Haynes arranged and captured from different angles. This snapshot led him to make black line drawings of the composition, which he then colored in to test different color relationships.
Richard Haynes created different color options for Cyrus Bruce’s attire.
A closer look at the color options for Cyrus Bruce’s attire. Haynes used the brush to remove unwanted flakes of crayon from his paper.

Making an Invisible Person Visible

Richard Haynes and the Cyrus Bruce Project

Artist Richard Haynes describes his excitement for breathing life into a historical person whose image was not recorded.

Photograph of artist Richard Haynes, a smiling Black man in a light blue collared shirt in front of a beige wall.
Richard Haynes on Cyrus Bruce
0:57
The Artist's Process

In the video below, Richard Haynes discusses this project and his artistic process.

Richard Haynes Discusses His Process
7:10

Community Collaboration

Artist Richard Haynes describes how he collaborated with the Historic New England community to decide on the final version of this portrait.

Richard Haynes Involves Historic New England Members
1:42

Langdon House

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

A National Historic Landmark, Governor John Langdon House is an exceptional Georgian mansion which George Washington “esteemed the first” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its reception rooms are of a grand scale suited to ceremonial occasions and are ornamented by elaborate wood carving in the Rococo style.

John Langdon was a merchant, shipbuilder, Revolutionary War leader, signer of the United States Constitution, and three-term governor of New Hampshire. At the end of the nineteenth century, his descendants purchased the house and restored it to its eighteenth-century appearance. They added a substantial wing designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White to house modern necessities. The house tells the story of the early colony of New Hampshire, Portsmouth’s mercantile boom, and the Colonial Revival movement.

The Governor John Langdon House is located at 143 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.