Commissioning a Portrait in Minnesota
Hazel Morgan provides a bespoke portrait painting service to clients throughout Minnesota. 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 Minnesota. Each commission begins with a personal consultation and results in a work of enduring artistic merit.
Portrait Artist Minnesota Area
As your trusted Portrait Artist Minnesota, Hazel Morgan serves portrait clients in Minnesota and the surrounding communities. Portraits are shipped directly to your door with professional packaging and full insurance coverage.
How to Commission a Portrait from Minnesota
Commissioning a portrait from Hazel Morgan is a collaborative and enjoyable experience, regardless of where you are located in Minnesota. 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 Minnesota, 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 Minnesota typically receive their portrait within one to two weeks of completion.
Why Clients in Minnesota 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 Minnesota
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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota. 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 Minnesota
Minnesota captivates Hazel Morgan in ways that translate directly into her portrait work. What draws her most is the state's extraordinary sense of place - a landscape shaped by the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the north, the sweeping Mississippi River bluffs near Winona, and the quiet dignity of the Iron Range towns that once defined an entire era of American industry. Hazel is drawn to the cultural richness of the Twin Cities, where the Minneapolis Institute of Art stands as one of the finest encyclopedic art museums in the country, housing an astonishing collection that spans thousands of years and countless traditions. That depth of artistic heritage reminds Hazel that portrait painting is part of a long, meaningful continuum - one she is proud to continue for Minnesota families and individuals who deserve portraits that honor their character with the same seriousness that great art always has.
What captivates Hazel about Minnesota's communities is the way everyday life and culture are interwoven so naturally. The vibrant St. Paul Farmers Market, running since 1854, reflects a community that values authenticity and connection - qualities she actively seeks to bring into every commissioned portrait. The neighborhoods of Northeast Minneapolis, with its thriving studio scene centered around the Northrup King Building and the twice-yearly Art-A-Whirl open studio event, signal a region that takes creative expression seriously at every level. Hazel admires how Minnesotans embrace art not as an elite pursuit but as something genuinely communal, from the folk traditions of the Scandinavian and Finnish settlers of the Iron Range to the vibrant Hmong cultural celebrations that bring life to St. Paul's Frogtown neighborhood each year.
For Hazel, creating portraits for Minnesota clients means engaging with people shaped by a remarkable environment - one defined by resilience, warmth, and quiet pride. The summer music and arts festivals along the shores of Lake Superior near Duluth, the storied literary legacy of Sinclair Lewis's Sauk Centre, and the grand civic beauty of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul all speak to a state that believes its story is worth telling. Hazel finds that belief deeply inspiring, and it shows in every portrait she creates for the people who call Minnesota home.
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 Minnesota.
Request a Free ConsultationMinnesota Counties Hazel Paints Portraits In
Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carlton, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cook, Cottonwood, Crow Wing, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Grant, Hennepin, Houston, Hubbard, Isanti, Itasca, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac qui Parle, Lake, Lake of the Woods, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Mahnomen, Marshall, Martin, McLeod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pennington, Pine, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Roseau, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, St. Louis, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine.
Towns in Minnesota Where Hazel’s Portrait Clients Live
Wayzata, Orono, Deephaven, Minnetonka Beach, Woodland, Tonka Bay, Excelsior, Shorewood, Greenwood, Medina, Long Lake, Edina, Morningside, North Oaks, Sunfish Lake, Dellwood, White Bear Lake, Mahtomedi, Stillwater, Afton, Lake Elmo, Mendota Heights, Summit Hill, Crocus Hill, St. Paul, Kenwood, Lowry Hill, Linden Hills, Minneapolis, Golden Valley, Plymouth, Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, Minnetrista, Rochester, Winona, Red Wing, Lanesboro, Duluth, Congdon Park, Two Harbors, Grand Marais, Lutsen, Brainerd, Nisswa, Gull Lake, Alexandria, Detroit Lakes, Park Rapids, Bemidji, Northfield and Marine on St. Croix.
Old Traditions, Quiet Fortunes: Portraiture in Minnesota
Minnesota’s artistic history is shaped by two things that rarely appear together: very old Indigenous traditions that were never interrupted, and industrial fortunes made with unusual speed by families who mostly declined to be ostentatious about them. The portrait tradition here reflects both, and it is quieter and more durable than the wealth alone would suggest.
The Dakota and the Ojibwe have lived in this region for centuries, and their visual traditions are among the most technically demanding in North America. Quillwork, beadwork, birch bark biting and painted hide record lineage, standing and spiritual life through pattern and material rather than facial likeness. These are living practices, not historical ones, and Minnesota institutions have increasingly come to treat them as central to the state’s art rather than adjacent to it.
The first European-style images of Minnesota were made by soldiers and travellers. Seth Eastman, an army officer stationed at Fort Snelling in the 1830s and 1840s, produced a large body of paintings and drawings of Dakota life that remain among the most detailed visual records of the period. George Catlin also travelled through the region. Their work is documentary in intent, and its accuracy varies, but it established the upper Mississippi as a subject worth painting.
Statehood came in 1858, and fortunes followed with remarkable speed. Flour milling, lumber, iron ore and the railroads produced families - Pillsbury, Washburn, Weyerhaeuser, Hill - who within a single generation moved from frontier commerce to genuine wealth. Their houses needed decorating, and their standing needed recording.
James J. Hill is the clearest example. The railway builder’s house on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, completed in 1891, was among the largest private residences in the region, and Hill assembled a serious collection of French painting, particularly Barbizon works. That a Minnesota railway magnate was buying Corot and Millet in the 1880s tells you how quickly the state’s ambitions caught up with its money.
Minnesota’s own painters worked in that current. Alexis Jean Fournier, based in Minneapolis, trained in Europe and brought a Barbizon-influenced landscape sensibility back to the upper Midwest. Painters of this generation typically supported themselves with portrait commissions from the same milling and timber families whose houses they decorated.
Institutions arrived early by regional standards. The Minneapolis Institute of Art opened in 1915 with a broad collection intended for public education rather than private display, and remains one of the strongest encyclopaedic museums between Chicago and the coast. Its presence meant Minnesota artists could study European portraiture seriously without leaving the state.
Minnesota also produced artists who worked well outside the commissioned tradition. Wanda Gág, born in New Ulm, became one of the most inventive American printmakers and illustrators of the twentieth century, and her early drawings of small-town Minnesota life have a directness that formal portraiture of the period rarely achieved.
After the Second World War the Walker Art Center made the Twin Cities a genuine centre for contemporary art, and the opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 1988 gave the city an unusually public relationship with modern work. The commissioned portrait, meanwhile, continued steadily in the places it always had: universities, hospitals, law firms, boardrooms and the halls of long-established families.
That institutional demand matters more in Minnesota than in most states. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, the state’s universities, and a dense concentration of large private companies have sustained a continuous tradition of formal portraiture through decades when fashionable opinion had little use for it.
Today the commissioning is concentrated around the western suburbs of Minneapolis - Wayzata, Orono, Deephaven and the Lake Minnetonka shore - together with Edina, the older streets of St. Paul, and North Oaks. It is old-money territory in a state that dislikes the phrase, and the prevailing taste runs to restraint: good painting, well framed, hung where the family sees it rather than where visitors will.
Contemporary Minnesota portraiture reflects that temperament. Clients here tend to want likeness before flattery, and a painting that will sit comfortably in a house for fifty years rather than announce itself. The reasons for commissioning are the same as anywhere - a marriage, a retirement, a generation growing up - but the brief is characteristically Minnesotan: make it true, make it last, and do not make a fuss about it.