R. Michael Wommack

Beach House with Sand and Ocean Waves out the Window. Title - Perfect Day # 3

2021

“Morning Light” epitomizes the abundance of Spring with its bustling bouquet of white lilies, yellow roses, and a sliced open, ready to be eaten pink grapefruit. Despite the levity of the scene, Lucas has challenged herself with space, making a clear contrast between subject and background. She is consciously rejecting the “ironed on” effect of a subject onto a canvas, a trap to which lesser artists might succumb. Artist Bio Maryann Lucas lives and works in Sag Harbor. She is primarily self-taught but has also received instruction and support from wonderful and generous members of the East End artistic community. Working exclusively in oils, Lucas sets out almost daily to create plein aire landscapes and seascapes. In her studio, she works directly from life and captures the beauty of natural light as it transforms ordinary objects into visual delights. Lucas wants her work to celebrate all that is well with this world and brilliant in this life, despite its pockets of darkness. For me, she says, I know I am in the Presence of something beautiful, when it steals my breath, silences my mind, pushes out everything else and draws me in. I trust That. I use That to guide my hands as I arrange a still life or scan a landscape to determine where to set down my easel. Ultimately, That is what drives me to paint. Becoming evermore skilled as an oil painter is another of Lucas goals. To that end she remains teachable, finding it refreshing and vital for her own growth to paint with others. She has studied with favorite artists including Michael Klein...

This original modernist still life oil painting by John E. Thompson (1882-1945) beautifully captures an interior scene, featuring a table draped in a rich red cloth with a vibrant ar...

Donald Vogel’s paintings reflect his interest in seeking beauty in life and in sharing pleasure with his viewers. Vogel entreats us to "rejoice and celebrate each new day, knowing it...

Valley House Gallery is honored to present a selection of paintings from the estate of American artist, John Hartell (1902-1995). John Hartell taught two disciplines at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York: freshman architecture and graduate painting. He was a much-loved professor there from 1930 until his retirement in 1967; one of his most illustrious students is the architect Richard Meier. As an artist, Hartell's first solo exhibition was in 1937 at Kleeman Gallery in New York. He exhibited at Kraushaar Galleries in New York for four decades, beginning in 1943. The Hartell Gallery at Cornell University, under the Sibley Dome, is named for him. In describing John Hartell, the artist Michael Boyd...