The most fashionable portraitist now active is René Bouché (rhymes with touché). He may also be the best. Last week at Manhattan's Alexander Iolas Gallery, Bouché had on view a brilliant display of what his flickering, sweet-and-sour brush can do. Recent subjects: Truman Capote, Isak Dinesen, Anita Loos, Elsa Maxwell, Mrs. William Paley, the Duchess of Windsor, Lady Astor, the Duchess of Argyll and Alexander Calder.
A knowing sparrow of a man, Bouché often asks the glamorous and important to pose for his thin-stained canvases, gives them a drawing for their pains. Bouché's technical equipment, like that of John Singer Sargent and...
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