Two Generations of South Bronx Artists

The sculptor John Ahearn wasn’t looking for a new muse when he stopped by a high-school portrait show around the corner from his South Bronx studio two years ago. But he was struck by a realist oil painting depicting drowsy subway riders. “It was really deep and beautifully painted,” he recalled recently. When he met the artist, eighteen-year-old Devon Rodriguez, he was taken aback again: the boy’s angular black hairline and V-neck T-shirt reminded him “exactly” of a Picasso self-portrait from 1906.