Hudson River School, Landscape, Luminist

Sean Witucki (N/A) Contemporary, American

Medium: Oil on Board
Image Size: 8” x 10”
Frame Size: 14” x 16”
Signature: Signed lower right
Price: $2200

Biography/Statement

Sean M. Witucki (b. 1977) obtained his BS and MS in Visual Art Education from the State University of NY at Buffalo State.  Sean is primarily a self-taught artist, who is always focused on developing his skills in the techniques of the traditional masters.  He has been a drawing and painting instructor at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts since 2002.

Sean reveals a personal and contemporary expression of landscapes and still lives which pay homage to his formative years. He spent much of his boyhood roaming the fields and woods on the edge of the Berkshire Mountains in Monson, Massachusetts.  This is where his understanding of the natural world took its roots.  This influence plays a major role in the subjects of Sean’s works.

In 2016 Sean had the honor of becoming a Hudson River Fellow with the Grand Central Atelier.  This experience has greatly influenced his work.

Artist Profile Page: Witucki, Sean / Categories: Hudson River School, Landscape, Luminist

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Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

Dennis Sheehan (1950-) Contemporary, American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Frame Size: 18” x 30”
Signature: Signed lower left
Price: $7500

Biography/Statement

Dennis Sheehan, born in Boston in 1950, is a member of the Guild of Boston Artists. His work is in major public and private collections., including the White House. Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority and faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the Tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature’s changing seasons.

“Today, in a cultural firmament that has been defined as Postmodern, a new generation of American painters is returning to the old landscape seeking a renewed vision.  The cultural strategies that they employ are as diverse as any from the past; in most cases, these painters consciously strive to enter into a dialogue with the history of the White Mountains art.  Their work, grounded in a sophisticated appreciation of what has come before, is in many cases deliberately discursive with a tradition that has been all but erased twice by historical and cultural forces.” 

The contemporary work of Dennis Sheehan, for example, affords a great nineteenth-century-predecessor George Inness.  Like Inness, whose influence is consciously acknowledged, Sheehan employs the dark palette and thickly pigmented surfaces of the French Barbizon School*. Maintaining a muted tonalist chromatic scheme, Sheehan, like Inness before him, has temerity to eschew picturesque scenery-his Conway Meadows avoids any reference to the traditional climax view of Mount Washington—in the interest of evoking atmospherics* and the appearance of the natural world as it is observed.

Optical truth combined with poetic resonance—the search for some ineffable quality of nature beyond words -constitutes the probity of his art. Yet, also like Inness, Sheehan’s paintings are produced in the studio. His work is the product of the conscious distillation of prior imagery ranging from the American Barbizon to the abstractions of Franz Kline. For all of the references to history—and there are multiple—there is no mistaking the artist’s debt to the more recent past. Without the legacy of action painting, Sheehan’s art would be less forceful and evocative than it is.”

Source: Guild of Boston Artists

 “My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflections of light. This is why the shadow areas are important, for it is from them that this emanation proceeds. The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadows.” – Dennis Sheehan

Artist Profile Page: Sheehan, Dennis / Categories: Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

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Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

John Francis Murphy (1853-1921) American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 20” x 12”
Frame Size: 26” x 18”
Signature: Signed lower right
Price: $4800

Biography/Statement

Known for his Tonalist-style landscape paintings, John Francis Murphy was referred to as the “American Corot” because of his similarity to the painting style of Camille Corot (1796-1875), one of the original Barbizon painters in France.

Murphy was born on December 11, 1853 in Oswego, New York.  Completely self-taught, he kept his studio for many years in New York City.  His work was first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1876, where he was inducted eleven years later.

He won numerous prizes, medals and honors for his landscape paintings, which are said to rank with those of George Inness, Alexander Wyant, and Homer Martin. Although his world was a limited one, his landscapes captured the forms of nature and the subtle nuances of the scene.

Artist Profile Page: Murphy, John Francis / Categories: Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

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Impressionism, Landscape

Peter Bela Mayer (1888-1954) American, European

A View Of Eastport, Maine

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 36” x 40”
Frame Size: 44” x 48”
Signature: Signed lower right
Price: $9500

Biography/Statement

Bela Mayer, landscape painter and textile designer, was born in Loeche, Hungary, 1887.  It is not known when he immigrated to the United States; however he enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1908.  For the next seven years he would study art there under the tutelage of C. Y. Turner, Ivan Olinsky and E. Ward.

After finishing his schooling, Mayer moved to Long Island, and would stay in the New England area all of his life.  He visited Gloucester and other locations on Cape Anne, Massachusetts.

Sometime during the 1940s, Bela Mayer added the Peter to his name in order to distance himself from female artists with his same first name.  Though he changed his name, his belief that “balance is the most important element in a painting” never wavered; he was quoted saying this at a showing of his work in Roslyn, New Jersey in 1984.

His Impressionist paintings combine the organic lines of nature perfectly with the more structural and geometric lines of man in a non-abrasive, harmonious manner.  He spent his time outdoors painting towns along the Hudson and around his home in Long Island.

Artist Profile Page: Mayer, Peter Bela / Categories: Impressionism, Landscape

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Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

Dennis Sheehan (1950-) Contemporary, American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 30” x 40”
Frame Size: 40” x 50”
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Price: $6500

Biography/Statement

Dennis Sheehan, born in Boston in 1950, is a member of the Guild of Boston Artists. His work is in major public and private collections., including the White House. Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority and faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the Tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature’s changing seasons.

“Today, in a cultural firmament that has been defined as Postmodern, a new generation of American painters is returning to the old landscape seeking a renewed vision.  The cultural strategies that they employ are as diverse as any from the past; in most cases, these painters consciously strive to enter into a dialogue with the history of the White Mountains art.  Their work, grounded in a sophisticated appreciation of what has come before, is in many cases deliberately discursive with a tradition that has been all but erased twice by historical and cultural forces.” 

The contemporary work of Dennis Sheehan, for example, affords a great nineteenth-century-predecessor George Inness.  Like Inness, whose influence is consciously acknowledged, Sheehan employs the dark palette and thickly pigmented surfaces of the French Barbizon School*. Maintaining a muted tonalist chromatic scheme, Sheehan, like Inness before him, has temerity to eschew picturesque scenery-his Conway Meadows avoids any reference to the traditional climax view of Mount Washington—in the interest of evoking atmospherics* and the appearance of the natural world as it is observed.

Optical truth combined with poetic resonance—the search for some ineffable quality of nature beyond words -constitutes the probity of his art. Yet, also like Inness, Sheehan’s paintings are produced in the studio. His work is the product of the conscious distillation of prior imagery ranging from the American Barbizon to the abstractions of Franz Kline. For all of the references to history—and there are multiple—there is no mistaking the artist’s debt to the more recent past. Without the legacy of action painting, Sheehan’s art would be less forceful and evocative than it is.”

Source: Guild of Boston Artists

 “My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflections of light. This is why the shadow areas are important, for it is from them that this emanation proceeds. The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadows.” – Dennis Sheehan

Artist Profile Page: Sheehan, Dennis / Categories: Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

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Landscape

Casey Krawczyk (N/A) Contemporary, American

Medium: Oil on Board
Image Size: 9” x 12”
Frame Size: 17” x 20”
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Price: $1500

Biography/Statement

I was raised in rural northern Minnesota in a place called the Iron Range, a place best known for it’s sub-zero temps, Fargo-like accents, Finnish culture and saunas, and it was home to the young Bobby Zimmerman, more commonly known as Bob Dylan. In my mind, MN is best known for it’s quiet, contemplative beauty, it’s still waters mirror-like and mystical in the morning mist and salmon sunrises, the haunting call of the loon over the splash of a beavers tail…all in harmony with the constant buzz of mosquitoes and the chirping of frogs. Aurora Borealis. Skinny dipping by moonlight, followed by a steaming-hot sauna. Flaxen-haired Scandinavians, the roll of an R off my grandmothers Finnish-speaking tongue and Ole and Lena jokes. Snow sparkling diamond-like in the morning light, breath visible in the frigid air, frosty eyelashes and frostbitten toes, lake waters frozen thick and the exhilarating resonance of its cracking beneath bladed skates. Nature. Beauty. Home.

Artist Profile Page: Krawczyk, Casey / Categories: Landscape

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Landscape, Marine / Seascape

Edward R. Kingsbury (1855-1940) American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 30” x 36”
Frame Size: 38” x 44”
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Price: $9500

Biography/Statement

Born in Boston, MA in 1855. Kingsbury studied at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, Boston Museum School, and Académie Julian in Paris. A resident of Carmel, CA in the 1920s, his last years were spent in Ogunquit, ME and Cambridge, MA, He died in the latter on May 1, 1940.

Member: Salmagundi Club; Ogunquit AA.  Exhibitions:  Springville (UT) High School, 1927. In: Charlestown (MA) High School (mural). Carmel At Work and Play, p. 58; WWAA 1936-41; NY Times, 5-2-1940 (obit).

Artist Profile Page: Kingsbury, Edward R. / Categories: Landscape, Marine / Seascape

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Hudson River School, Landscape

Robert Havell Jr. (1793-1878) American, European

Includes an extensive and well-researched letter from the Havell expert Gerold Wunderlich.

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 30” x 50”
Frame Size: 38” x 58”
Price: SOLD

Biography/Statement

Born in Reading, England, Robert Havell was the son of an engraver, and was expected to follow that profession.  Fulfilling his destiny, he is remembered for  his aquatint engraving of all but the first 10 plates of John James Audubon’s Birds of America.  He first visited Audubon in 1839 in New York City and traveled and sketched the countryside in a homemade horse-drawn trailer, and together they had skills that were well met.  He also did artwork in oil and watercolor in Hudson River style with Luminism.  However, he preferred to think of himself as an engraver.

Until 1841, he lived in Brooklyn and in 1842 his travel-weary wife established a house for the family in Ossining (Sing Sing) on the Hudson River, and he later, 1857, moved to Tarrytown, living there to his death in 1878.  During this time he did landscape painting that in style and subject matter fit the criteria for being Hudson River School painting. Among his titles were several titled View of the Hudson River, as well as Sunset Near Sing-Sing and Fauns Leap, NY.

Havell traveled frequently, sketching and taking notes and then doing studio landscapes in oil and watercolor as well as making engravings, the later which remained his favorite medium.  His engraving, West Point from Fort Putnam, received much public attention, and he also did engravings of American cities.

Source:
David Michael Zellman, 300 Years of American Art, p. 113
Peter Hastings Falk, Who Was Who in American Art

Artist Profile Page: Havell Jr., Robert / Categories: Hudson River School, Landscape

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Hudson River School, Landscape

James Wethered Bell (N/A) American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 30” x 50”
Signature: Signed and dated Lower Left 1882
Price: $12000

Biography/Statement

Artist Profile Page: Bell, James Wethered / Categories: Hudson River School, Landscape

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Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

Dennis Sheehan (1950-) Contemporary, American

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Image Size: 8” x 18”
Frame Size: 18” x 28”
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Price: SOLD

Biography/Statement

Dennis Sheehan, born in Boston in 1950, is a member of the Guild of Boston Artists. His work is in major public and private collections., including the White House. Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority and faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the Tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature’s changing seasons.

“Today, in a cultural firmament that has been defined as Postmodern, a new generation of American painters is returning to the old landscape seeking a renewed vision.  The cultural strategies that they employ are as diverse as any from the past; in most cases, these painters consciously strive to enter into a dialogue with the history of the White Mountains art.  Their work, grounded in a sophisticated appreciation of what has come before, is in many cases deliberately discursive with a tradition that has been all but erased twice by historical and cultural forces.” 

The contemporary work of Dennis Sheehan, for example, affords a great nineteenth-century-predecessor George Inness.  Like Inness, whose influence is consciously acknowledged, Sheehan employs the dark palette and thickly pigmented surfaces of the French Barbizon School*. Maintaining a muted tonalist chromatic scheme, Sheehan, like Inness before him, has temerity to eschew picturesque scenery-his Conway Meadows avoids any reference to the traditional climax view of Mount Washington—in the interest of evoking atmospherics* and the appearance of the natural world as it is observed.

Optical truth combined with poetic resonance—the search for some ineffable quality of nature beyond words -constitutes the probity of his art. Yet, also like Inness, Sheehan’s paintings are produced in the studio. His work is the product of the conscious distillation of prior imagery ranging from the American Barbizon to the abstractions of Franz Kline. For all of the references to history—and there are multiple—there is no mistaking the artist’s debt to the more recent past. Without the legacy of action painting, Sheehan’s art would be less forceful and evocative than it is.”

Source: Guild of Boston Artists

 “My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflections of light. This is why the shadow areas are important, for it is from them that this emanation proceeds. The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadows.” – Dennis Sheehan

Artist Profile Page: Sheehan, Dennis / Categories: Barbizon School, Landscape, Tonalism

Other Available Works by this Artist:

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