Commissioning a Portrait in Delaware
Hazel Morgan provides a bespoke portrait painting service to clients throughout Delaware. An award-winning artist with over four decades of professional experience, Hazel creates hand-painted oil portraits of exceptional quality for individuals, families, corporations, and institutions across the state.
From the boardroom to the family home, Hazel’s portraits have graced the walls of distinguished collectors, university halls, and corporate headquarters throughout Delaware. Each commission begins with a personal consultation and results in a work of enduring artistic merit.
Portrait Artist Delaware Area
As your trusted Portrait Artist Delaware, Hazel Morgan serves portrait clients in Delaware and the surrounding communities. Portraits are shipped directly to your door with professional packaging and full insurance coverage.
How to Commission a Portrait from Delaware
Commissioning a portrait from Hazel Morgan is a collaborative and enjoyable experience, regardless of where you are located in Delaware. The process has been refined over hundreds of commissions to ensure a seamless experience for every client.
Step 1: Initial Consultation
The process begins with a complimentary consultation - by telephone, video call, or email - during which Hazel discusses your vision for the portrait. This covers the subject, preferred composition, size, background, clothing, and any particular details you would like to include. There is no obligation at this stage.
Step 2: Photographs & References
For clients in Delaware, Hazel can work from professional photographs, high-quality personal photographs, or a combination of multiple reference images. She provides clear guidance on the types of photographs that produce the best results. Where feasible, live sittings can also be arranged.
Step 3: The Painting Process
Once the composition is agreed, Hazel begins painting. The process typically takes between six and twelve weeks depending on the complexity of the piece. Clients receive progress photographs at key stages so you can see the portrait taking shape and provide feedback before completion.
Step 4: Delivery & Framing
Completed portraits are professionally packaged for shipping. Shipping and framing costs are provided once the painting is complete. Hazel can also recommend master framers who specialise in fine art framing to complement your finished portrait. Clients in Delaware typically receive their portrait within one to two weeks of completion.
Why Clients in Delaware Choose Hazel Morgan
Hazel Morgan brings a rare combination of artistic excellence, professional reliability, and personal warmth to every commission. Here is what sets her apart:
Over 40 years of professional experience - Hazel has been painting portraits professionally since the early 1980s, amassing a body of work that spans hundreds of commissions for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide.
Award-winning recognition - Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and other prestigious venues. She is a member of several leading art societies.
A personal, one-to-one service - Unlike studio operations, every portrait is painted entirely by Hazel herself. You deal directly with the artist from first consultation through to delivery, ensuring your vision is faithfully realised.
International shipping expertise - Hazel regularly ships completed portraits to clients across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond. Every painting is professionally packaged to arrive in perfect condition.
Complete satisfaction guaranteed - Hazel works closely with each client throughout the painting process. Progress images are shared at every stage, and adjustments are made until you are completely happy with the finished portrait.
Frequently Asked Questions - Portrait Commissions in Delaware
Hazel provides personalized quotations after an initial telephone consultation, during which she discusses your specific requirements. The consultation is complimentary and entirely without obligation. Please get in touch to arrange a convenient time to talk.
Not at all. The majority of Hazel’s commissions are painted from photographs, which makes the process convenient for clients in Delaware and beyond. Hazel provides guidance on the best types of photographs to supply. Live sittings can be arranged where practical.
Most portraits are completed within six to twelve weeks from the start of painting, depending on the complexity of the commission. Hazel provides a realistic timeline during the initial consultation. Rush commissions can sometimes be accommodated for special occasions.
Hazel has extensive experience working with a range of photographic references, including older or lower-resolution images. She can often combine multiple photographs to create a single cohesive portrait. During the consultation, she will advise on whether your available photographs are suitable.
Completed portraits are professionally packaged using custom-built crating and shipped via insured courier directly to your address in Delaware. Shipping and framing are quoted separately after the portrait is completed.
Client satisfaction is paramount. Hazel shares progress photographs at key stages throughout the painting process so you can provide feedback and request adjustments. This collaborative approach means that by the time the portrait is complete, it faithfully reflects your vision.
Why Hazel Loves Delaware
Delaware holds a special place in Hazel's heart as a state whose identity is layered with extraordinary historical depth and genuine community pride. What captivates Hazel about Delaware is how seamlessly its storied past and vibrant present coexist - from the cobblestone character of New Castle's historic district to the natural splendor of Brandywine Creek State Park in the Brandywine Valley. She is deeply drawn to the cultural legacy anchored by the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, whose breathtaking collection of American decorative arts and period furnishings speaks to generations of craftsmanship and refined aesthetic vision - precisely the kind of devotion to artistry that resonates with Hazel's own approach to portraiture. The First State's nickname feels entirely earned when Hazel considers how deeply history is woven into its landscape, from the Revolutionary War-era architecture along The Green in Dover to the colonial merchant homes lining the waterfront of the Christina River in Wilmington.
Hazel admires the way Delaware's communities celebrate art and identity with such heartfelt enthusiasm. Wilmington's arts scene, anchored by institutions like the Delaware Art Museum and the Grand Opera House on Market Street, reflects a population that genuinely values beauty and cultural expression. She is drawn to the sense of togetherness found in events like the Firefly Music Festival held at The Woodlands in Dover, and the beloved Hagley Museum's annual celebrations along the banks of the Brandywine River that connect families to the state's remarkable industrial heritage. The Trolley Square neighborhood in Wilmington, with its eclectic energy and creative spirit, is exactly the kind of community fabric that reminds Hazel why portraiture matters - because people with rich, grounded lives deserve artwork that honors who they truly are.
For Hazel, creating bespoke oil portraits for Delaware clients feels like a natural and deeply meaningful pursuit. Whether a family rooted in the farmlands of Sussex County, a couple celebrating milestones near Rehoboth Beach's vibrant boardwalk, or an individual connected to the academic community around the University of Delaware in Newark, each commission carries the warmth and substance of a state unlike any other. Delaware's people carry history, resilience, and quiet pride - and Hazel believes those qualities deserve to be immortalized in paint.
Ready to Commission Your Portrait?
Begin with a complimentary, no-obligation consultation. Hazel would love to discuss your portrait ideas and provide a personalized quotation for clients in Delaware.
Request a Free ConsultationDelaware Counties Hazel Paints Portraits In
New Castle, Kent and Sussex - only three, the fewest of any state. Delaware also keeps a subdivision almost nowhere else in America still uses: the hundred. There are thirty-three of them, with names like Brandywine, Christiana, Mill Creek, Pencader, Appoquinimink, Duck Creek, St. Jones, Murderkill, Mispillion, Cedar Creek, Broadkill, Georgetown, Indian River, Baltimore, Dagsboro, Gumboro, Little Creek, Nanticoke and Seaford. They no longer govern anything, but they still appear on deeds.
Towns in Delaware Where Hazel’s Portrait Clients Live
Wilmington, Greenville, Centreville, Montchanin, Rockland, Winterthur, Chadds Ford Road, Hockessin, Yorklyn, Pike Creek, Newark, Bear, Glasgow, Middletown, Odessa, Townsend, Smyrna, Dover, Camden, Wyoming, Magnolia, Felton, Harrington, Milford, Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Henlopen Acres, North Shores, Bethany Beach, South Bethany, Fenwick Island, Ocean View, Millville, Frankford, Selbyville, Millsboro, Georgetown, Seaford, Bridgeville, Laurel, Delmar, Greenwood, Milton, Slaughter Beach, Bowers Beach, Little Creek, Leipsic, Clayton, New Castle, Delaware City and Port Penn.
Howard Pyle, the Pre-Raphaelites and the Delaware Portrait
For a state you can drive across in half an hour, Delaware holds an improbable amount of art. The largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite painting outside the United Kingdom is in Wilmington, and the school of illustration that shaped how Americans pictured pirates, knights and their own history was founded a few streets away.
The land is Lenape homeland, and the Nanticoke remain in Sussex County. The Swedes came first, founding Fort Christina at Wilmington in 1638 - the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware valley, and the source of the log cabin, which the Swedes brought and everyone else copied. The Dutch took it, then the English. Delaware ratified the Constitution on 7 December 1787, first of the thirteen, and has called itself the First State ever since.
The du Ponts arrived in 1800, fleeing the French Revolution, and built black powder mills on the Brandywine. The company became the largest chemical concern in the world, and the family stayed put - which is why an area of a few square miles north of Wilmington now holds four great house museums.
Winterthur is the most remarkable. Henry Francis du Pont turned his family home into a house of one hundred and seventy-five period rooms holding some ninety thousand objects, and it is the finest collection of American decorative arts anywhere. Nemours is a Louis XVI château with formal gardens. Hagley preserves the original powder yards. And Longwood, just across the Pennsylvania line, is Pierre du Pont’s conservatory garden.
The Delaware Art Museum owes its existence to a different kind of collector. Samuel Bancroft, a Quaker textile manufacturer, saw a Rossetti in 1880 and spent the next thirty years buying Pre-Raphaelites - Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Millais, Hunt, and the drawings and photographs that go with them. His family gave the collection to Wilmington in 1935. It is the largest such holding outside Britain, and for a portrait painter it is instructive: the Pre-Raphaelites were obsessive about individual faces and about painting them from real, named women.
The museum’s other half is Howard Pyle. Born in Wilmington in 1853, he became the most influential illustrator in America and then, more importantly, a teacher. He turned down money to run a school in New York and instead taught for free in Wilmington and at Chadds Ford, selecting his students personally. N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley and Harvey Dunn all came through his studio.
What Pyle taught was that you had to know a thing before you drew it - that a picture failed if the painter had not imagined himself standing in the room. His students carried it forward. N. C. Wyeth’s children and grandchildren are still painting in the Brandywine valley, and the Brandywine Museum at Chadds Ford, a converted grist mill, holds three generations of them along with Pyle and Schoonover.
Delaware’s other distinction is legal and unexpectedly relevant. More than half of all publicly traded American companies are incorporated here, and the Court of Chancery in Wilmington, which sits without a jury and dates from 1792, decides the corporate disputes that matter most in the country. That has given a small state an unusually large and long-established legal establishment - and lawyers, historically, commission portraits.
The coast is a separate world. Lewes, founded by the Dutch in 1631, calls itself the first town in the first state. Rehoboth Beach has been a summer resort since 1873 and draws families from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia who have kept the same houses for generations. Henlopen Acres, North Shores and Bethany hold most of the second homes.
Commissions come from three areas. The chateau country north-west of Wilmington - Greenville, Centreville, Montchanin, Hockessin - where the older families are. Middletown and the Odessa corridor, which has grown fast. And the beaches from Lewes to Fenwick Island.
Institutional portraiture is steady for the size: the University of Delaware at Newark, Delaware State at Dover, Wesley College, Christiana Care, the Court of Chancery and the federal courts, the Legislative Hall at Dover, the Wilmington Club and the older Wilmington firms all keep portraits and continue to add.
Horse and hound subjects are common in the New Castle County countryside, where foxhunting has continued since the nineteenth century, and the beach houses tend to want something lighter - children, dogs, water. For a state of a million people, the range of what gets asked for is surprisingly wide.