Don Bachardy’s Life and Work, in His Own Words

A new oral biography presents an unfiltered account of Hollywood portraitist Don Bachardy, tracing his artistic development, his circle of sitters and friends, and his decades-long partnership with writer Christopher Isherwood. Compiled by Michael Schreiber from extensive one-on-one interviews at the Santa Monica home Bachardy shared with Isherwood, the volume centers the artist’s voice while situating his practice within film, literature, and art histories.

Forewords by filmmaker James Ivory and actor-writer Simon Callow frame the book’s approach and historical scope. Their contributions underscore Bachardy’s role as both a chronicler of public figures and a figure of cultural history in his own right.

The publication includes previously unseen photographs and a curated selection of Bachardy’s artworks, many of which align with a current retrospective of his portraiture at The Huntington in Los Angeles. This linkage between page and exhibition highlights continuities across media—drawing, painting, photography—and underscores the sustained interest in Bachardy’s method of direct, time-bound portrait sittings.

Bachardy’s archive of sitters spans cinema, letters, and the visual arts. The press materials emphasize portraits of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote, among others—works notable for an economy of line and a focus on psychological presence over ornament. The book places these sessions in narrative context, recounting how public image, private encounter, and studio routine intersected in Bachardy’s practice.

At the core of the narrative is Bachardy’s partnership with Isherwood—from their meeting in the 1950s through the creative life they built together until Isherwood’s death—documented here through Bachardy’s recollections. The account interweaves domestic scenes, collaborative projects, and the afterlives of Isherwood’s work (including the Berlin Stories that became the basis for Cabaret), treating the relationship as both personal biography and cultural document.

Schreiber structures the book as an oral history rather than a conventional critical monograph. The result is a first-person chronicle that moves from formative years to mature practice, punctuated by portraits, studio anecdotes, and observations about the demands of working from life. The tone aims to balance celebrity lore with a clear accounting of process, discipline, and the stakes of representation.

Bachardy’s drawings and paintings are held in institutions across Europe and the United States, and the book positions this museum presence alongside the intimate mechanics of his sittings: the limited duration of a live session, the insistence on direct looking, and the refusal to idealize. In gathering these elements, the biography proposes a through-line from the artist’s earliest encounters to a sustained body of work that treats recognition—of sitter and of self—as its central problem.

Publication date: October 28, 2025.