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Portraits on peanuts:

 

(Above) The Denver Post ran a story on Manick Sorcar's artwork on peanuts and a grain of rice. Below is
a reproduction of the story by Carol Dickinson.

"Portraits on peanuts"

By Carol Dickinson

September 10, 1978

 

President Carter's portrait on a peanut, or half a peanut, has been painted "for fun" by an engineer-artist from India. P.C. Sorcar of Golden, Colo., is a partner of an electrical consulting engineering firm is also a self-taught artist. His main efforts (before his little detour into peanut portraiture) centered on Indian folk themes rendered as wall paintings in bold acrylics. he paints under the name "Manick".

"It's a painstaking work, and the end product is vernerable, but I thought briefly of painting Rosalyn's portrait on the other half of the peanut, then closing the halves like a locket and giving it to the president', says Sorcar, 32.

Sorcar describes his procedure and its pitfalls: "I had to reduce a brush to one hair, and of course, work with a magnifying glass. I could only work two hours at a time without getting a headache. The Carter portrait took about eight hours. The magnification is only for the eye. The hand is still limited by the tiny picture surface."

Sorcar also has painted a portrait of Abraham Lincoln - this one on a grain of rice!

Sorcar's father - "Sorcar the Great" - was India's leading magician until his death in 1971. He was a master illusionist whose tricks included "sawing a woman in half".

The younger Sorcar first visited the United States when he accompanied his father for an appearance at the World's Fair in New York in 1964. He was always entranced with his father's magic and the staging and engineering involved. He learned many tricks himself.

He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington and has lived in Colorado since 1972. He has planned the electrical systems for many area buildings and has written a book on planning lighting for energy-conservation, economy and beauty. McGraw-Hill has accepted the book for publication in January.

 

 

 
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