Meet the Columbus artist whose ‘Fountain City Faces’ inspired bestselling novel
What started a decade ago as a simple request to decorate a Columbus coffee shop’s walls with portraits has snowballed, thrusting an already well-known local artist into a much brighter spotlight.
This surge in popularity has brought fans of Harris County resident Allen Levi’s best-selling novel “Theo of Golden” to Columbus artist Garry Pound’s doorstep, an in-person visit from a movie production company and calls from Oprah Winfrey’s podcast producers requesting his help.
The sudden attention for the artist whose “Fountain City Faces” portraits helped inspire Levi’s uplifting story was built one drawing at a time.
“This book somehow touched people, and it’s just gone ballistic,” Pound told the Ledger-Enquirer. "I’m just grateful to be hanging on and enjoying the ride.”
Pound said “The Fountain City Faces” project began when Fountain City Coffee owners Libba Dillon and Jud Richardson asked him in 2017 to paint portraits of customers to decorate the shop’s walls.
“I thought I’d be putting up maybe five portraits in the coffee shop,” he said, “and then it just kind of snowballed into a thing.”
Pound said the project grew to represent a melting pot of Columbus.
“I’m usually looking for interesting faces,” he said. “Some people are friends, and I’ve known them forever. But there are also homeless folks, people that come up to me, and they’re nice to me, and I think. ‘Well, let me take your photograph and we’ll see what we can do.’”
Pound estimates he has done 200-plus of these portraits, with about 90 still on the walls.
“People buy them, and they take them away, or they buy them and leave them on the wall,” he said.
The portraits, drawn in charcoal and pencil, are based on reference photos Pound takes because people don’t have time to sit for a portrait. Then it’s just sitting in his studio and doing the work. Though he paints other subjects, like landscapes in oil, Pound said his favorite medium is drawing.
“There’s an immediacy to that,” he said, “and it only takes a pencil and a journal to do the drawing, so you can pick it up at any point and connect with the world around you.”
As “Theo of Golden” has risen in popularity, so has Pound’s.
“People had noticed that Allen had mentioned me in the back of the book,” he said, “and so I started getting requests for portraits.”
Pound said a book club in Vermont, for parents who had lost children, asked him to do portraits of the children from the families, which he said was gratifying.
Then his niece Eva Pound took over his social media presence.
“She connected me with the whole ‘Theo of Golden’ phenomenon,” he said. “I’ve had 5,000 new followers on Instagram in the past couple of months — and more work than I can handle in the next couple of years”
As the buzz about a possible “Theo of Golden” movie increases, Pound said movie producers have contacted him, and Oprah Winfrey’s staff asked Pound to contribute to an interview Oprah did with Levi.
“Theo of Golden” fans have also discovered Pound’s studio in the Columbus Historic District.
“I’m happy to have them come in because they’re always about as nice as you can be, and they’re thrilled to be here,” he said. “I’m thrilled to have them here.”
Pound said he has watched “Theo of Golden” grow from a self-published book that initially sold about 3,000 copies to a massive hit, officially selling more than one million copies by early 2026 and topping The New York Times Best Sellers list for print and e-book fiction.
“I have no idea how it happened,” Pound said. “This is a phenomenon. Mostly, it’s a phenomenon for Columbus. It’s also a phenomenon for the book world, and this never happens. You don’t just self-publish and then by word-of-mouth get a number one bestseller.”
Pound said he is happy for Levi, whom he has known and collaborated with on projects, such as the 2003 children’s book “Oliviatown,” for almost 40 years.
“Back in the day, he was a family lawyer, and he handled a lot of adoptions, and some friends of mine were adopting a little girl, and he was helping them with that,” Pound said.
When the adoption was finalized, Pound said, he invited the family and Levi over for dinner.
“We sat on the porch, and he sang a song called ‘Learning to Fly on a Windy Day,’ and I thought, ‘This is a guy that I want to hang out with for the rest of my life,’” Pound said. "He’s just a great person.”
What’s next for Pound?
“As soon as I sell my house, I’m going to move into the studio and travel as much as possible,” he said, “and I’ll enjoy my 15 minutes of fame for as long as it lasts.”
Becoming rich or famous for "Fountain City Faces,” Pound said, has never been top of mind.
“It’s always just that human touch and meeting people and kind of hopefully honoring some of the friends that I had and some of the interesting people I’ve run across in that small venue,” he said. “And to have it turn into this, it’s quite remarkable.”
