Dagny Going to a New Home

Today I confirmed that Dagny is going to a loving home of a new collector. A cause for celebrations for both of us.

One of my first realistic works, inspired by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It is Dagny after she had left Taggart Transcontinental, and got a dingy office in a seedy part of Manhattan. I was 22, and my studio where I painted this was also in Manhattan in a dingy part of down—it made painting the setting easier, being close to home.

The subject was that she was burning productive energy all cylinders. And was risking a fortune and her reputation to build the John Galt Line. At this moment it was after midnight, exhausted, in a slum office, she has a lonely moment of introspection.

Like the Man Moving Out of Oblivion/Transcending Oblivion, it was a large canvas with her whole figure behind her desk, a lit cigarette in between her fingers. There were visible Manhattan High-rises seen through the window. There were a couple of problems I couldn’t solve, so I cut down the canvas to just her portrait. On the wall behind her, was her prized possession, a portrait sketch of her ancestor Nat Taggart as a young man, he was the maverick that created Taggart Transcontinental. In real life, Robert Mechielsen, great architectural designer, posed for the sketch, and Jennifer Trainer Thompson , author of Nuclear Power Both Sides along with famous physicist Michio Kaku, posed for Dagny.

This portrait of Rob was also a study for huge painting, Individuals Revolution, a prophetic vision. I did a lot of studies for the painting, but it was beyond the abilities of my 22-year-old self.

Michael, Idyllwild, February 7, 2022

Frame of References:

Kaku, M. and Trainer, J. Nuclear Power: Both Sides. https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Power-Arguments-Controversial-Technology/dp/0393301281

Mechielsen, R. https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmechielsen

Newberry, M. Transcending Oblivion, backstory on that portrait.