JEAN ANGELL

Jean Angell has always been a smart, able woman with great discipline and drive. A lawyer, philanthropist, a member of a long list of important boards of directors, she has raised an impressive family and lived an impressive life. At the age of 56 - she got Lou Gehrig's disease. Her response was in character. She wanted, she said, to live her life as fully as she could, for as long as she could. She set about it with familiar intelligence and resolve.

Lou Gehrig's is a brutal disease'a remorseless slide into debilitation and death. I painted this divided portrait in 2001 when Jean could still operate her own wheel chair and talk and entertain in her airy, West Side apartment. Scheduling time with her was a trick because her life was still so amazingly full - of family, of friends and of professional commitments. I marveled at her energy and good humor. Among other things, she has more friends than almost anyone I know and she works hard at making time for them. They gladly make time for her. The disease marches along. When conversation got really hard for her, she scheduled "movie nights" when close pals would come over to watch video's. Not much talking, just being together.

Now she cannot speak and has to communicate by looking through and at a screen of words. Long after most people have given up - the patient gets to decide with this disease - she holds on to life, so as to be there for her family. Job's torments pale, and she never expressed a word of self pity or regret. She lives as hard as she can and she has done so all her life. She is an icon in this already elegant company.