Paul G. Oxborough
Café Window
2023

About the Item

Paul G. Oxborough's mastery as a painter has been firmly established over a decades-long career. His ability to render light in a room has been compared to the work of Velázquez; the sensitivity and drama of his portraits to the talents of Rembrandt; and the fluidity and bravura of his brushstrokes to John Singer Sargent's impressionist flair. Rooted in tradition, Oxborough's work is both contemporary and timeless. The artist seeks inspiration in world travel and finds himself drawn time and again to the challenges of capturing light on canvas in myriad forms—natural and artificial, sun rays and candle flames, bulbs and screens, and countless reflections. Light dances in his signature bar and hotel scenes as it illuminates faces, bounces off glasses, bottles, and mirrors, defines fabrics and reveals textures and colors. As this luminescence moves around the canvas, so do the eyes of the viewer, and the enchanting scene becomes a living moment. Oxborough has won numerous awards for his portraiture, which has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the National Portrait Gallery in London, among other museums in the U.S. and Europe. He is a four-time participant in the BP Portrait Award exhibition, recognized as the most prestigious portrait painting competition in the world. Oxborough was invited several times to contribute paintings to the UK’s National Portrait Gala, an annual charity event hosted by the British Royal Family. Oxborough’s paintings are part of the collections of Oxford University (England), the Minnesota State Capitol, The New Salem Museum, and many other private and institutional collections. In addition to portraits and bar scenes, Oxborough’s figure paintings include landscapes and marine scenes, city scenes, and domestic interiors, with settings drawn from his travels around the world—a street in Dublin, a bar in Shanghai, the desert in Botswana. No matter the subject, Oxborough’s command of light is a defining feature of his work as is the poetry of his art. What is left undescribed is every bit as important as that which is delineated in paint. His work has a narrative allure that inspires wonderment: viewers are free to imagine what happened just before this moment captured on canvas, and what might transpire next. People become enamored by Oxborough’s paintings for a variety of reasons: they can readily associate a contemporary painter with one whose work they’ve seen in a museum, making comparisons in subject or form with artists like Vermeer or Rembrandt, Velázquez or Degas, Whistler or Manet; there is a feeling of familiarity, of tradition, of artistic lineage that is respected and admired; they come to the work with a pure appreciation of its technical merits or are drawn by the specific content, for example, a shared memory of a certain place. Not to be underestimated, however, is the warm invitation every Oxborough painting offers, an invitation to enter a moment, experience a place, and share in the artist’s joie de vivre.

Creator:
Paul G. Oxborough (1965, American)
Creation Year:
2023
Dimensions:
Height: 24 in (60.96 cm)Width: 31 in (78.74 cm)
Medium:
Linen,Oil
Movement & Style:
American Realist
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Greenwich, CT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU18113533432
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