Robert Dash

“Sagg Pond, Sagaponack”

Circa 1995

Robert Dash was homeschooled for most of his young life due to ongoing illnesses. Never formally studying painting, he developed a strong interest in the abstract expressionists, particularly Willem De Kooning, in college. He attended the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, in part to escape the city. After college, he spent a year in Italy, and upon returning to New York City worked for Arts and then Art News, while painting at night. He had his first show in 1960. Since then, he has painted, written and gardened near Sagg Pond on eastern Long Island, at residence among the changeable celebration of plantings, paths, views and architectural expressions of Madoo, a much-admired garden conservatory of his own making. A longtime Hamptons resident, Dash’s works have been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Holland, England and Germany as well as numerous major American art galleries. He also participated in many group exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art, Yale University and the University of Missouri Fine Arts. His works are also featured in museum collections including the Modern Art Museum, Munich; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Robert Dash is known for his Hamptons paintings. His painterly sensuality is purely American. It is clear and direct, recording the commonplace. Never at a loss for subject matter among the fields and hedgerows of the Hamptons, Dash has long been associated with a sensual realm over the merely intellectual, favoring the "ultimate reality" of immediate physical experience. Robert Dash passed away in 2013.