Giving My Father Back His Name: The Fuller Brush Man Meets the Great American Portrait Artist

by Jerry Strauss

Illustrated by Lucia Yee-Lipitz

 

Vividly drawn and charming written is this true story about a Holocaust survivor, an artist, an iconic painting, and the illuminating search that united them all. A door-to-door salesman meets a portrait artist who asks him to sit for her. The artist, Alice Neel, becomes famous years later as does her painting "Fuller Brush Man." This is the story of the man behind the portrait, Dewald Strauss, his son's discovery of the "Fuller Brush Man," and the struggle for his recognition as the true subject of the previously anonymous painting. The story is cleverly shared as a graphic novel that weaves together history, art, and biography.