Capital Gazette Shooting Victims Honored With Portrait Gallery

ANNAPOLIS, MD — A recent portrait gallery honored the Capital Gazette shooting victims five years after the newspaper attack.

Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of the mass shooting that killed five staffers: Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, Rebecca Smith, John McNamara and Rob Hiaasen.

The free gallery featured a painting and a biography of each victim at the Michael E. Busch Annapolis Library, located at 1410 West Street.

Five different artists painted the oil pieces as gifts to the victims' families. The families picked up the artwork Monday and Tuesday.

Winters was a local news reporter and a community columnist. She used to introduce herself as "Wendi Winters, like a bad weather report," so Abigail McBride painted her with an umbrella in a poppy field. The green umbrella represents the recycling bin that Winters used to block the gunman and save lives.

"I wanted to honor Wendi's spirit not just in likeness but even in how I approached the process of making," McBride said on the plaque beside the portrait. "So, I went way outside my comfort zone and experimented with an almost wild abandon making an art piece to honor Wendi's love, creativity and courage."

Fischman listened to operas and classical music while he penned the editorials for The Capital. He also wrote poems for special family occasions. Artist Rebecca Wallace Pugh loved that Fischman met his wife at a Kennedy Center opera.

"In the portrait Gerald is holding a program from another concert that they later attended," Pugh said. "Wearing his favorite shirt and tie, he is in front of his book collection — music, history, politics, classical literature. He intended to read the first edition classics when he retired."

Smith, a sales assistant, was passionate about her family and her dogs. Laura Era painted Smith after speaking with her sister.

"She told me her sister's favorite colors were periwinkle blue and violets so I incorporated them into her top and the background," Era said. "Her beautiful green eyes were memorizing!"

McNamara was a sports reporter, an editor and the book author of "The Capital of Basketball." Melissa Gryder painted McNamara on the University of Maryland basketball court, smiling while standing in his natural arms-crossed stance.

"This was John and Andrea's alma mater, the place they met and were married, and the subject of one of his books," Gryder said. "Andrea was delighted with my suggestion to include her in the background watching from the Press box."

Hiaasen, a nature lover, was the assistant managing editor and a columnist. Artist Andrée Tullier depicted the 6-foot, 5-inch Hiaasen standing outside the Maryland State House.

"Rob was usually seen wearing a French blue buttoned-down long sleeve shirt," Tullier said. "The last touch to be included was a reporter's notebook in hand that he always had with him."

The City of Annapolis will honor the victims with a wreath-lying ceremony Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. The event will be at the Guardians of the First Amendment Memorial, located at Compromise Street and Newman Street. All are welcome to attend.

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