L. Comer Jennings Jr. ’48

Comer died in his sleep March 6, 2016, in an assisted-living facility in Atlanta, Ga. He was 89.

For half a century he had been a locally and regionally famous portrait artist and a leader in arts organizations such as the Atlanta Ballet and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. He was a portrait painter of local and regional social, business, and political leaders and members of their families.

Born in Eufaula, Ala., he attended Culver Military Academy, did Navy service at the end of World War II, and in 1946 entered Princeton, where he was on the Princeton Tiger staff and in Cottage Club.

Then Comer entered the Coast Guard and later finished college at the University of North Carolina and at Emory University in Atlanta. He spent a decade in advertising, working at N.W. Ayer in Philadelphia and McCann Marschalk in New York. Having gone back to Atlanta to manage the Coca-Cola advertising account, he soon set off on yet another career, quickly gaining local fame as a portraitist.

Comer was married for 11 years to Ann Elizabeth May. She survives him, as do their sons, Comer Jennings III and Benjamin Jennings, and five grandsons.