Fairfield Artist Probes History & Paints

Fairfield artist Karl Soderlund sojourned at the Fairfield Historical Society and surfed the Internet to define his subjects for a new commission: to paint a big picture evoking Fairfield history for the Old Post Tavern, which is scheduled to open tonight at the corner of Unquowa and Post roads.

The 44-inch by 88-inch picture, not yet framed, captures a visitor's attention off to the right of the new cherrywood bar.

It's an interpretation of a c.1925 photograph Soderlund found at the Historical Society three months ago when the owners of the new eatery - who gutted the former Bravo Restaurant & Bar at that location when they took over in February - connected him with Leo Redgate, owner of the next-door Community Theatre.

Soderlund, a native of Easton who now lives in Fairfield, discovered that a trolley ran down the Post Road at that time. Research of the Connecticut Car Company led him to paint a bright yellow trolley car with an historically-accurate number and the date "1925" into the piece alongside the "Community Theatre block" of buildings.

"People don't know about this," he said during an interview at his studio at 61 Unquowa Road, referring to the existence of the trolley track and trolley cars on the Post Road in the early 1900s.

Two diminutive figures stand on the sidewalk in the picture: Soderlund's children Cooper, 10, and Jacqueline, 7, dressed in period attire, served as their dad's live models. The figure of the boy is waving to a friend on the trolley.

The two are standing in front of a big "Tavern" sign marking the location of a restaurant known to have been at this location since the turn of the 20^th century, according to Old Post Tavern partner Patrick Tennaro.

And so Soderlund took a few artistic liberties.

Back in 1925, Prohibition was in effect and one would not have seen an ostentatious sign for a "tavern" advertising the sale of alcohol, he acknowledged.

And, as a matter of historical accuracy, it is not known whether a tavern had ever occupied the site.

"I doubt it," said Roderick Mackenzie, library assistant and genealogist at the Fairfield Museum and History Center.

Taverns serving stagecoaches and travelers on horseback dotted the original Post Road - the "Old Post Road" a few blocks to the south - in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, he said.

And although the original Post Road followed Unquowa Road past the restaurant site, the Post Road did not develop as a commercial center until after 1848, when the railroad came to town.

Nevertheless, the Old Post Tavern will be developing the theme of taverns in Fairfield in the days ahead. On order are giant blow-ups of postcards of authentic local taverns of old. They'll be mounted on the bare walls. And Tennaro will follow the old-time custom of keeping the front lantern lit in the evening while food is being served.

For Soderlund, painting from an historical vantage point comes naturally.

Formally trained at the Art Students League in New York and at Yale University's master's program in fine arts, Soderlund has an affinity for historical subjects that evoke a past time and place.

He created his "subway series" of paintings of New York City scenes with local landmarks - Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center's golden Atlas statue, Bleecker Street's open-air markets - superimposed upon subway maps.

Another series was of post-Civil War seaport scenes at the busy ports of Saugatuck, Southport and Black Rock.

His latest foray has been biographical: his giant "Iconic Obsession" portraits of Albert Einstein, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn  Monroe, Louis Armstrong and Mohammed Ali all consist of tiny symbols associated with their lives, a technique obvious only upon a close-up look.

Soderlund paints portraits and seascapes in oil in equal measure. From time to time, he is joined at his easel by daughter Jacqueline, who is at hers. Her recent portrait of an imagined pet puppy and a real pet rabbit was drying the other day at the studio.