When Alice Neel painted his portrait, Ron Kajiwara was a graphic designer at Vogue; later, he became its design director. ‘Kajiwara’s face is a kind of mask here,’ Als says. ‘He and his family had been interned in California during the second world war when he was a kid, and he was gay, and there is something so forbidding about his character. He has been rejected by the world and here he is working in the white avant garde. His pose is a kind of armour. Alice is painting her inability to get further in; his beautiful self defense.’ [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/apr/29/the-people-of-harlem-as-painted-by-alice-neel-in-pictures] Ron Kajiwara’s 1971 life-sized portrait seems to bring the young Japanese-American designer fully present. With his carefully-tended long, black hair, crisp jeans tucked into natty boots, and relaxed gaze, you’d recognize him in an instant, if you passed him on the street. Though Kajiwara died of AIDS in 1990, his presence is still palpable. [http://www.ourtownny.com/local-news/20170329/the-genius-next-door]