Commissioning a Portrait in Oregon
Hazel Morgan provides a bespoke portrait painting service to clients throughout Oregon. 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 Oregon. Each commission begins with a personal consultation and results in a work of enduring artistic merit.
Portrait Artist Oregon Area
As your trusted Portrait Artist Oregon, Hazel Morgan serves portrait clients in Oregon and the surrounding communities. Portraits are shipped directly to your door with professional packaging and full insurance coverage.
How to Commission a Portrait from Oregon
Commissioning a portrait from Hazel Morgan is a collaborative and enjoyable experience, regardless of where you are located in Oregon. 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 Oregon, 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 Oregon typically receive their portrait within one to two weeks of completion.
Why Clients in Oregon 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 Oregon
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 Oregon 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 Oregon. 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 Oregon
Oregon holds a special kind of artistic power that Hazel finds deeply compelling. What captivates Hazel about this Pacific Northwest state is the extraordinary richness of its natural landscape - the snow-capped summit of Mount Hood rising above the Columbia River Gorge, the sweeping coastline along the Pacific where haystack rocks emerge dramatically from the sea at Cannon Beach, and the dense old-growth forests of the Willamette Valley that frame communities with an almost painterly quality. Hazel is drawn to the way Oregon's geography seems to shape its people - nurturing a creative, grounded, and deeply community-minded spirit that translates beautifully into the faces and stories she captures in oil on canvas. The Portland Art Museum, one of the oldest art museums in the American West, speaks to how seriously Oregonians embrace artistic culture, and that reverence for fine art gives Hazel's portrait commissions a meaningful context within the state's broader creative identity.
Hazel admires the way Oregon's communities celebrate art and local life with such genuine enthusiasm. The Portland Saturday Market, operating since 1974 as one of the largest continuously operating outdoor arts and crafts markets in the country, reflects the deep appreciation Oregonians have for handcrafted, original work - exactly the values that inform Hazel's own meticulous approach to bespoke oil portraiture. She is equally drawn to the cultural energy of the Pearl District in Portland, a neighborhood known for its First Thursday art walks that bring galleries, collectors, and everyday art lovers together in a tradition that has shaped the city's artistic reputation for decades. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, drawing audiences from across the country each season, further illustrates how committed Oregon's communities are to preserving and celebrating meaningful, enduring creative traditions.
What moves Hazel most, however, is the deeply personal way Oregonians connect with their surroundings and with one another. Whether it is families gathered along the banks of the Deschutes River in Bend, or the tight-knit communities of the Willamette Valley wine country celebrating harvest season together, there is a warmth and authenticity to Oregon's people that makes portrait commissions from this state feel especially meaningful. Hazel believes that a truly great portrait must reflect not just a likeness but a life - and Oregon, with its breathtaking landscapes, rich cultural traditions, and spirited communities, provides the perfect inspiration for that kind of deeply personal, lasting work.
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 Oregon.
Request a Free ConsultationOregon Counties Hazel Paints Portraits In
Baker, Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Crook, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Multnomah, Polk, Sherman, Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, Wasco, Washington, Wheeler and Yamhill.
Towns in Oregon Where Hazel’s Portrait Clients Live
Portland, Dunthorpe, Council Crest, Alameda, Irvington, Laurelhurst Portland, Eastmoreland, Sellwood, Northwest District, Forest Heights, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Oswego Lake, Milwaukie, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, Hillsboro, Newberg, Dundee, Dayton, McMinnville, Carlton, Yamhill, Salem, Silverton, Albany, Corvallis, Eugene, Springfield, Ashland, Medford, Jacksonville, Grants Pass, Bend, Sunriver, Sisters, Redmond, Black Butte Ranch, Hood River, The Dalles, Mount Hood, Government Camp, Astoria, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Gearhart, Seaside, Newport, Bandon, Joseph and Pendleton.
Timberline, the Willamette and the Oregon Portrait
Oregon has the oldest art museum on the West Coast and one of the strangest and best public building projects ever attempted in America, and both tell you something about how the state thinks about making things by hand.
The land is Chinook, Kalapuya, Klamath, Umatilla, Nez Perce and Coquille homeland. The Columbia was one of the great trading rivers of North America long before Lewis and Clark reached its mouth in 1805 and wintered at Fort Clatsop. From 1843 the Oregon Trail brought some four hundred thousand people two thousand miles overland - the largest voluntary migration on foot in modern history - and the Willamette Valley was what they came for.
The Portland Art Museum opened in 1892, the first on the Pacific coast. It began, characteristically, with plaster casts of antique sculpture bought so that people in a frontier town could see what the classical tradition looked like, and it now has a good American collection and an outstanding Native American one.
Timberline Lodge is the other thing. Built on the south slope of Mount Hood in 1937 by the Works Progress Administration, it was made entirely by hand by unemployed craftsmen - stone masons, blacksmiths, weavers, woodcarvers and painters. Every newel post is a carved animal, the curtains and rugs were woven on site from recycled wool, the ironwork was forged from worn-out railroad track. It is still a working hotel, and it is the finest surviving example of American craft revival anywhere.
That instinct persists. Oregon has an unusually large population of working makers per head - furniture, ceramics, textiles, boats, knives, guitars - and the state has never really separated art from craft in the way the East does. Pendleton has been weaving wool at its Oregon mills since 1909, and its trade blankets are collected as seriously as any textile in America.
Painting here has a quieter history. C. S. Price, who came out of Wyoming ranching and painted in Portland from 1929, made brooding, simplified figures and animals that are among the best American paintings of the period. Louis Bunce, Carl Morris and Hilda Morris carried Northwest modernism forward. Maude Kerns taught for decades at Eugene and left the gallery that bears her name.
The Willamette Valley changed character in the 1970s when a handful of people planted Pinot Noir on hillsides everyone said were too cool for it. There are now well over seven hundred wineries in Oregon, most of them family-run, concentrated in Yamhill and Polk counties around Dundee, Carlton and McMinnville. Those families are now two and three generations in, which is the point at which people commission portraits.
Portland money came later and more quietly than Seattle’s: Nike at Beaverton, Columbia Sportswear, Harry and David, Les Schwab, Intel’s Silicon Forest at Hillsboro. Pittock Mansion, built in 1914 by a newspaper publisher and saved from demolition by public subscription in 1964, is the one great house of the older era.
Commissions come from a handful of places. Portland’s Dunthorpe, Council Crest, Irvington and Alameda, and out to Lake Oswego and West Linn. The wine country at Dundee, Newberg and McMinnville. Bend, Sunriver, Sisters and Black Butte on the dry side of the Cascades. Ashland and Jacksonville in the Rogue Valley, where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has run since 1935. Hood River. And the coast at Gearhart, Cannon Beach and Manzanita, where families have kept the same houses for generations.
Institutional portraiture is steady: the University of Oregon and its Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Oregon State, Reed College, Lewis and Clark, Willamette University - the oldest in the West, founded 1842 - Oregon Health and Science University, the state capitol at Salem, the federal courts and the older Portland firms.
Eastern Oregon is a different country and worth naming separately. The Wallowas, Baker City, Burns and the Pendleton round-up country hold ranching families who have been on the same ground since the 1870s. Sporting and stock portraits there are ordinary commissions, and the light on that side of the mountains is nothing like Portland’s.
Which is really the Oregon problem and the Oregon pleasure. It is two states - wet and green west of the Cascades, high and dry to the east - and a portrait made for one looks quite wrong in the other.