Pet portraitist Mimi Vang Olsen marches to the beat of her own drum
Mimi Vang Olsen operates in the West Village equivalent of a goldfish bowl. Every day, the eighty-five-year-old pet portraitist settles in a chair in her studio-cum-storefront on Hudson Street and gets to work, painting dogs, cats and the occasional guinea pig. Tourists stop to peer inside, cooing over a haphazard display of postcards and paintings. Locals tap on the glass to wave hello. During the pandemic, curiosity intensified: Vang Olsen’s shop became an Instagram sensation after she attached a blue mask onto a pug portrait hanging in the window for some much-needed levity. Vang Olsen, however, is nonchalant about the attention. She doesn’t have a cell phone or social media.
