I don't know if I'd give much weight to the opinion of a photographer when it comes to the future of painted portraiture. Yes, what we do is more expensive than what he does, and not many people can afford our work, but that's like listening to the Volkswagen salesman saying negative things about the Jaguar dealer across town. The Jag is more expensive and the Volkswagen may last just as long, but the two cars are created for very different purposes...
As far as how portraiture is doing as an industry, like any other luxury item it's very sensitive to the swings of the economy. Other than the problems some artists have had because their prospective clients have felt a bit of belt tightening lately, it seems that portraiture is doing very well in the big scheme of things.
Forbes magazine ran an article about portrait artists in late 2001 and had the subheading "Business is booming for artists who paint likenesses at up to $50,000 a pop." Later in the article they wrote, "Despite market woes, professional portrait artists aren't pawning their palettes to pay the rent."
In the last couple of years Business Week and Vogue Magazine have both run articles on how to pick a portrait artist and what to wear when you get your portrait done.
When the high end media pays this much attention to what we do I don't think we can call it a dying art quite yet.
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