People

Ageless art

Boris Chezar is nearing 90, but he shows no signs of retiring from his lifelong passion: painting.

By JANET ZINK
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 7, 2003

SUN CITY CENTER -- Boris Chezar has been an artist since he was a teenager.

He's not about to let a little thing like age stop him now.

Chezar, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in August, still creates art every morning.

A graduate of Cooper Union College, Chezar moved to Sun City Center last year after living his entire life in New York City. His work has been shown at the Brooklyn Museum, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the St. Louis Art Museum and major galleries throughout New York City.

Chezar came to Florida at the behest of his children, Howard Chezar, who lives in Massachusetts, and Elaine Payne, a Temple Terrace resident.

Payne and the younger Chezar thought it best that their father get away from the hardships of Northern winters and the responsibilities of a large house and single-handedly caring for his wife, Fay, who has Alzheimer's disease.

Adjusting to a new locale took a while, and a few months after arriving in Sun City Center, Fay had to be moved to an assisted living facility. Chezar visits her every day.

But now, Chezar says, on many an afternoon he will "lay out in the sun and laugh at the people in New York who are shoveling snow."

And every morning, he paints.

Most painters, Chezar notes, develop a recognizable style that differentiates them from other artists. He, however, prefers to continually break new personal ground.

Over the years, his work has evolved from watercolor landscapes to oil portraits and Wassily Kandinsky-inspired abstracts. In addition to producing fine art, he supported his family by working for some of the world's largest advertising agencies, including J. Walter Thompson and Ayres.

During World War II, he painted murals of service men and women at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, and for a time was a portrait artist on a cruise ship.

Chezar says he follows his intuition in pursuit of new techniques.

"I just do what I have to do," he says. "I try not to do what others do."

Some of his most recent works are dimensional paintings composed of plywood shapes that jump off the canvas, an approach that grew out of his love for building things. He always did his own repairs and carpentry at his home in New York City. Chezar then coats the shapes with brightly colored acrylic paints applied with different tools to create a variety of textures.

Other pieces offer loose interpretations of landscapes or figures. A sketch titled Once upon a time . . . pulls together bright red and dark gray shapes to evoke the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

"I like the idea of discovery. It's not immediately known, but if you look at it long enough you're going to discover what it's all about," Chezar says.

"He was always true to his art," Payne says of her father.

Although his work took him away from his family a lot, Payne says she has fond memories of accompanying her father to art shows in Greenwich Village.

"His work is very unique and very high quality," says Anne Madden, owner of the Blue Ibis Gallery in Ruskin. "He's a wonderful colorist and does very unique work. I've never seen anything quite like his work before."

Although Madden's collection largely consists of Florida wildlife and landscape paintings, she jumped at the chance to share Chezar's work.

"I realized immediately that his work was something that needed a broader audience," Madden says.

She contacted Jan Stein at the Hillsborough County public art program, who arranged to have Chezar display his artwork in the County Center in downtown Tampa through February. It will move to the Hillsborough County Public Library main branch in March.

A show will begin at the Blue Ibis, 205 U.S. 41 S in Ruskin, on June 13.

Continuing to create new work and show it to others gives Chezar his zest for life.

"I feel very powerful in what I do," he says. "I have the resources to be a performer because I think art is a performance. It's an act. You hate playing to an empty theater. You like to be on the stage, but you like the applause. The recognition is the most important part, not the money."

Boris Chezar

AGE: 89.
SPOUSE: Fay.
PROGENY: One son, one daughter, four grandchildren.
PETS: Two cats, Dusty and Rusty.
GLOBE TROTTER: Chezar recently returned from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. He'd like to go to Australia next.
BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS: Hot cereal every day. Either oatmeal, Wheatina or Farina.
DOLLARS AND SENSE: Chezar's original prints sell for about $1,000. His larger dimensional pieces go for as much as $5,000.
HOW HE KEEPS PHYSICALLY FIT: Lifting weights in the Sun City Center fitness center, swimming laps and dancing.
HOW HE KEEPS MENTALLY FIT: Playing chess.
HOW HE LIKES HIS PEANUT BUTTER: Chunky, on a well-toasted English muffin.
WHAT'S THE USE? Chezar recently presented a lecture series on "Spirituality in Art" at the Sun City Center clubhouse. "In a utilitarian sense," he told attendees, "art has no value. Only in the spiritual area does it have life. It's what makes us human."