John Tibbetts is pictured, along with some of the celebrity portraits he's painted and had autographed, in this 2004 Journal-World file photo. Tibbetts is an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Kansas.

Famous writers, musicians, actors, sports figures — University of Kansas associate professor of film and media studies John Tibbetts has interviewed and painted portraits of more than 700 such personalities. Those portraits, all signed by their subjects, will have a permanent home at KU’s Spencer Research Library.

KU Libraries announced this month that Tibbetts is gifting the portraits to the library through a multi-year series of donations.

Through his career as a TV and radio broadcast journalist and as a scholar at KU, Tibbetts gained interviews with hundreds of celebrities and public figures, according to KU Libraries. For more than 40 years, he created pen-and-ink and watercolor portraits of such personalities, then asked them to sign the portraits during his interviews.

John Tibbetts is pictured, along with some of the celebrity portraits he's painted and had autographed, in this 2004 Journal-World file photo. Tibbetts is an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Kansas.

The first installment given to the library will feature writers, musicians, broadcasters and sports figures — bandleader Cab Calloway, opera singers Kathleen Battle and Luciano Pavarotti, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and composer Philip Glass, among others, according to KU Libraries. Additional installments will feature film, television and theater performers.

Famous names from show business Tibbetts interviewed and painted through the years include Julie Andrews, Whoopie Goldberg, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, Sean Connery, Spike Lee, Lauren Bacall and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A watercolor portrait of Sean Connery by John Tibbetts, associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Kansas.

Only one personage refused to sign his painting, Tibbetts told the Journal-World in a 2004 interview. That was Ralph Macchio — aka Daniel LaRusso of “Karate Kid.” The 2004 Journal-World story also outlines how Tibbetts began painting the portraits in the first place:

Tibbetts first honed his skills
rendering posters for the KU Film
Society in the 1960s. It was during
this stretch that he made his initial
celebrity contact.

“I wanted to write Ray Bradbury for a
long time, just to say thanks for all
the wonderful stories I’d been reading
as a kid,” he recalls. “So I did a
drawing of him (in 1966) and sent it
to him with no expectation of what
would happen. It came back to me,
beautifully inscribed with a letter,
which has initiated a correspondence
which has lasted almost 40 years.”

In the mid-1980s, the film critic
began to spend weekends traveling to
the coasts to gather in-person
interviews for his various outlets. He
started to explore the idea of
painting stars and presenting them
with the product.

“It was a way of connecting with
people,” he says. “It shows them that
I am interested in them and put out
something with my own energies to say
‘thank you’ or ‘I’m interested to meet
you.'”

Tibbetts’ paintings will join about 140 of his television interviews currently available online through KU ScholarWorks, kuscholarworks.ku.edu. Once catalogued, the paintings will be viewable by request in the Spencer Research Library reading room.

“They are a part of my life, almost my biography,” Tibbetts said, in the KU Libraries announcement, “and I hope others will enjoy the experience of the interviews, including the paintings and audio.”

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.