Everett Raymond Kinstler was born August 5, 1926 in New York City. His father was Joseph Kinstler and his mother was Esther Kinstler. He was the youngest of six children. They lived at 14 East 112th Street in the East Harlem district of Manhattan. His father was an owner of Belfit Company, a New York textile manufacturer.
In 1941 at the age of sixteen, he quit school in his Sophomore year at the High School of Industrial Arts, in order to work as an inker at a comic book company for three dollars a day.
In 1945 he began to create pen & ink story illustrations for pulp magazines, such as The Shadow and Doc Savage for Street & Smith.
On October 15, 1945 he entered military service as a Private in the U.S. Army, which was two months after the end of WWII. After his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army in 1948 he studied at the Art Students League in NYC.
In the 1950s he worked for Avon Publications, drawing mystery, war, and western comic books. He also drew for Dell Comics, Fawcett Comics, DC Comics, Ziff-Davis Comics, and Atlas Comics.
He continued to work for pulp magazines during the 1950s, creating interior story illustrations for Popular Publication titles, such as Short Stories, Adventure, and Ranch Romances. He also painted a few pulp magazine covers for Famous Western, Short Stories, and Ranch Romances.
In the 1950s he began to sell freelance cover paintings to paperback book publishers, such as Avon, Hillman, Bantam, and Pyramid.
In 1953 he studied at the National Academy of Design, where he met James Montgomery Flagg, who became his greatest influence and mentor.
He married Lea Nation on June 23, 1958. They moved to Connecticut and raised two children, Katherine and Dana.
In the early 1960s he began to receive portrait commissions, and he was soon a nationally-celebrated portrait painter. He has painted over 600 portraits of artists, dignitaries, corporate leaders, Hollywood Stars and Presidents.
After his first marriage ended in divorce, he married Marguerite "Peggy" Griffen Chartier on January 1, 1996.
In 1999 he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Ray Kinstler is very busy painting every day in his historic landmark art studio at the National Arts Club in NYC.
© David Saunders 2009 |
