Painting is third in township public art collection
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Doris Duke portrayed as a young woman was unveiled Friday night as the third portrait in the township’s public art collection.
More than 200 people applauded as the teen artist Kathleen Fritz pulled the covering off the portrait at the township Cultural Arts Commission’s art exhibit in the municipal building.
Her painting mentor, Kevin Murphy, said Kathleen had put the finishing touches on it at 10 the previous night.
Kathleen was effusive in her praise for Mr. Murphy, with whom she has been studying since selected for an apprenticeship last June.
The apprenticeship, which prepared her to compete for selection of the Duke painting, “completely changed my life,” she said, beyond the free classes and the prospect of a commission.
”The biggest thing is my standards,” she said. “When you take lessons with Kevin, 98 percent is not going to cut it.”
Her art from a year ago looks like someone else’s, she said. “I can’t believe how far you’ve brought me in so short a time,” she said, tearing up and looking at Mr. Murphy.
Kathleen opted to paint Ms. Duke, the heiress to the tobacco and energy fortune who held Hillsborough as her lifelong legal residence, as she looked in her early 20s. According to Timothy Taylor, executive director of the Duke Farms Foundation, who spoke at the show, Ms. Duke only sat for a portrait once in her life, at age 12.
The first two portraits in the township gallery were of Peter Biondi, a former mayor and now an Assemblyman, and Anna Case, an opera singer in the first third of the 20th century.

