Description

A signed limited print may be available of this piece! (click here)

I can still smell the sweet dew-filled fog, the orange morning sun creeping over the misty harbor hills, trembling water reflections, and the gentle waves tapping against the snuggled boats.

Just a short time earlier, still dark outside, in early dawn, we blasted off onto the bumpy entrance to the barren Grand Central Parkway, in my 1983 Camaro. Like astronauts strapped in on a voyage to the unknown; Dad's easel, and a bag of paints clanking in the back seat. I cracked the windows to let in the crisp morning air, and in just about one hour, we found our landing spot.

That day, my father, Laszlo Tar, was painting, and I was with him.

Almost 20 years had passed since we left our small New York City apartment, and it was 30 years since my family emigrated to this land of promise. Back then, very young, and even later, I knew little of the great changes that had happened to us. But now, in 1986, I started to understand. Our American Dream was real, and the difference felt large. It would be long before I could fully appreciate the sacrifices my parents made and still longer before I would know and respect how, with little more than frugal persistence and hard work, they did it.

And just a few years earlier, I began to understand my Dad through his art - Who, Why, and How he was - and although I didn’t know it at the time, my education with him would become an addiction. I swirled into his wondrous creative world, and he welcomed my involvement, not only as his son but as a pupil and partner.

On this misty early Sunday morning, in a place called Huntington New York, on Mill Dam Road, with him by his side, Dad set his easel facing east, and captured this unique Long Island moment, of a Harbor Sunrise. ❤️

Through My Father's Eyes