Commissioning a Portrait of Someone Who Has Passed Away

Some commissions start with excitement. This one usually starts with a message that begins “I hope this is not a strange request.” It is not. Portraits painted from photographs of people who have died are one of the oldest reasons this craft exists — before cameras, a painted likeness was the only likeness a family could keep. What follows is the practical version of that conversation: which photographs actually work, what a painter can and cannot honestly repair, what it costs, and how a grieving family makes these decisions without turning a memorial into a committee.

The photographs are the whole commission

When someone can no longer sit for a portrait, the photograph becomes the sitter. So before thinking about sizes, frames or styles, gather everything. Phone libraries and WhatsApp threads. The other side of the family, who always have a drawer nobody has opened since the funeral. Whatever slideshow played at the service — someone built it and still has the files. You are not looking for the best photograph. You are looking for usable face area, and they are rarely the same thing.

A usable reference has to show the face sharply, with the light coming from one direction, without heavy filters, and with the whole face visible — a three-quarter view is fine, a profile only works if that profile is the point. The stiff formal photograph people assume is “the” portrait reference is usually the worst one emotionally: nobody remembers a person the way they look in a passport photo. The mid-laugh frame from a birthday dinner, slightly blurry, is the one the family points at and says that’s him.

Then the arithmetic, which decides what is possible before anything else: the face needs to be at least 500 pixels wide in the image — about 1,000 for a genuinely comfortable result. Prints can be scanned at 600 dpi and a wallet-size original wants 1,200–2,400 dpi. Screenshots of screenshots are the most common failure: a frame grabbed from a video call is often 720p, which leaves a face of 200–300 pixels, and no painter can build a likeness from that. If the only good image lives in someone else’s phone, ask them to email the original file — it takes them a minute and it saves the commission.

Old, faded and damaged photographs are normal here

Most memorial references are decades old, and they arrive in the same conditions: prints faded toward orange or magenta, creases across a cheek, a water stain in one corner, silverfish damage at the edges. None of that disqualifies a photograph. Restoring colour and contrast, removing creases and stains, or combining two photographs into one composition is a $60–$70 addition, and a painter working in oil repairs the canvas itself — you do not need the original fixed first. The honest boundary is this: damage on top of a sharp face can be repaired; a face that was never sharp cannot be invented. The old-photograph guide walks through which is which, with scan settings.

Which face to paint: the age question

Families often have their sharpest photograph of someone at 35, but the person died at 72 and 72 is who everyone remembers. This is a decision to make deliberately, not by default: whichever photo is sharpest wins the commission, or whichever person wins it. Tell us plainly which you want — “her at around 60” or “the face from the 2018 reunion photo, but the hair from later” — and the mock-up will show you exactly what that combination looks like before anything is painted. If a sharper image of the same person exists at the age you want, we will ask for it; if it does not, the mock-up stage is where the family finds out whether the softer reference actually carries the likeness.

Combining people, or eras, on one canvas

The most common version of this commission is a couple where one partner has passed: two subjects at 16 × 20 in is $499, and merging two photographs into one believable composition is the $60–$70 addition. It works when the two photos agree on light direction and on how large each face sits in the frame; the background can always be invented, the two faces cannot. Where the photographs disagree badly, two separate canvases often read better side by side on the wall than one forced merge — two 12 × 16 in single-subject portraits are $578, and they give each person their own frame.

If the second subject is living

Painting a living spouse next to a partner who has passed is a delicate thing and worth saying out loud at the quote stage: the living subject can send new photographs whenever they like, which usually makes them the easier half. The mock-up decides how the two eras sit together — it is much cheaper to adjust pixels than to adjust paint.

What belongs on the canvas — and what never does

Keep the details that carry identity, even when a tidier photo would leave them out:

• The glasses. If they were never off her nose, paint them. Removing them removes the person.
• The wedding ring, the laugh lines, the grey at the temple. Families notice their absence faster than they notice anything else.
• One prop at most, and only if it carries the likeness: the fishing rod, the reading chair, the headscarf. Two props and the painting becomes a still life with a face in it.

Leave out the things studios offer and families later regret: angel wings, halos, light beams, doves against a sunset. They date the painting within a decade and they say nothing the family did not already know. The painting itself is the memorial; if a name and dates are wanted, they belong on an engraved plate on the frame, not on the canvas — the same rule we use on pet memorials. For the space behind the subject, a plain warm ground or one meaningful real place (the garden, the workshop) both work; the background guide explains why the plain version usually survives longer on a wall.

What it costs

Memorial portraits are priced exactly like every other portrait — by canvas size and subject count, on the public price table. The sizes families actually choose, one subject:

A 16 × 20 in with one subject at $389 is the size most families land on — large enough for a real likeness, small enough for a hallway or a place of honour on a shelf wall. Add $60–$70 for restoration or compositing if the reference needs it, and $90 if a fixed date forces a three-week rush. That is the whole arithmetic; nothing is added later.

Approving it, and paying for it

After the photographs arrive we produce a digital mock-up showing the exact composition, crop and background, and nothing is painted until the family says go. Orders up to $600 are paid in full at the start; larger ones split 50/50 between start and approval. The finished painting is photographed and sent for review with one free round of adjustments, and if the likeness is genuinely off, it is repainted — the terms on the process page apply to memorial commissions like any other.

One decision-maker, and a deadline only if one exists

Grief plus a committee is how memorial commissions stall. The pattern that works: one coordinator who sends the photographs, one approver who signs off the mock-up, and everyone else commenting by email through the coordinator. Five siblings who each get a direct vote on Grandma’s face will produce five Grandma’s.

On timing, be honest with yourselves about the date. Painting takes three to five weeks and transit three to five business days, so six weeks is comfortable. If the portrait must be unveiled at a memorial service or an anniversary, order that early or add the $90 rush, which brings the total to about three weeks. If there is no fixed date, there is no need to manufacture one — a canvas like this outlasts the calendar, and it is kinder to the reference photographs to get them right than to get them fast. When the date is real, tell us at the quote stage and we will confirm a schedule rather than promise one.

The short version

• Inventory every photograph first — the usable face is rarely the one the family expected, and 500 px of face is the floor.
• Old and damaged references are normal: restoration and compositing are $60–$70, but a face that was never sharp cannot be invented.
• Decide the age deliberately — paint the person the family remembers, and say so in the brief.
• Keep glasses, rings and laugh lines; skip wings, halos and sunsets. Names go on a plate, not the canvas.
• One subject at 16 × 20 in is $389, mock-up approved before painting, one free adjustment, repaint if the likeness is off.
• One coordinator, one approver; six weeks if a memorial date is fixed, $90 rush at three weeks, no deadline if there isn’t one.

If the hardest part is that the good photographs feel scarce, send what exists — even a list of what is where. We will tell you within 24 hours which of it can carry a likeness, and what the painting would cost, before anyone commits to anything.