Gerald Roush - Historian

 

In America there is one Ferrari historian, Gerald Roush. There are guys worldwide who have historically relevant material and wonderful collections of data, but in the automotive world I only know of two people who are trained as historians, Gerald Roush and Randy Ema. Information from them just has the extra stamp of credibility and it was essential to include him in the Ferrari Flame Keepers series.

Sadly he passed away before I could do a photo shoot with him so this one had its challenges. I didn't have many photo references for this, but Gerald's daughter Cathy sent me a photo of him at his desk that she liked. I too liked that setting but needed a lot more info. I had done a video interview with Gerald in the early 90s and reviewed that footage. I played the tapes and took photos of the TV screen and did some charcoal sketches from those. I used those sketches as reference for his likeness. With all the books and stuff in the painting there were over 160 reference shots.

I did a small portrait and the likeness was fine but it didn't have any story, any punch, just a face. I remembered being in his office, surrounded by files and books and papers, the printer busily churning out the next issue of the Ferrari Market Letter. I felt like I was in the huge library described in Faust and wanted to convey that in the portrait. So I (loosely) based the painting on his desk area with bookshelves towering over him, relaxed and relating a story of how he got involved with Ferrari in the first place (the magazine on the typewriter is the source). I didn't make the background exactly like his environment, there's no memorabilia, just reference material, but it conveys what I wanted to say.