American Realist Paintings

A tranquil oil painting featuring an early evening sunset with people strolling on the main beach in Carmel in front of a majestic sky from Willard Dixon, who is one of the finest American contemporary realist painters today. Dixon has painted coastal landscapes for 35 years, capturing the undeniable beauty of the West with its grand and humble spirit. The painting, with its atmospheric light and calm color palette in natural sky blue and setting sun warm red to purple, is contemporary and serene. The colors are reminiscent of Rothko as they shift in natural bands. Looking at this painting is like looking through a window to a lovely moment as the close of a day. Dixon’s work can be found in numerous distinctive private and public collections, as well as the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his work is collected Internationally. Artist signed and dated. A classic Dixon that will sure to bring those who view it a life time of pleasure. Carmel Beach, 18 x 53 inches. Oil on canvas, and traditionally framed in contemporary, minimal oak floater frame. The artist was born: Kansas City MO, 1942 Education: Art Students League, New York, NY Cornell University Brooklyn Museum School San Francisco Art Institute, M.F.A. 1969 Awards and Commissions N.E.A. Fellowship Grant- 1989 California Supreme Court Mural Commission- 1998 Las Vegas Federal Courthouse Commission, G.S.A.-1998 Teaching 1989-90: San Francisco State University 1975: San Francisco Art Institute Realism Seminar 1974-76: Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA 1973-74, 1976: California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA 1971-72: California State University, Hayward, CA One Man Exhibitions 2015: Willard Dixon Portraits College of Marin Fine Art Gallery, Kentfield 2014: SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2008: SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA. 2005: Fischbach Gallery, NYC,NY 2005: Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2004: Fischbach Gallery, NYC, NY. 2002: Earl McGrath Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2002: Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA 2001: Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2000: Fischbach Gallery, NYC , NY 2000: Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, CA 1998: Hackett Freedman Gallery, SF, CA 1997: Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1996, 1995: Contemporary Realist Gallery (now Hackett Freedman Gallery) 1994: Fischbach Gallery 1993: Contemporary Realist Gallery 1992: Fischbach Gallery 1991: Earl McGrath Gallery, 454 North, Los Angeles, CA 1990: Fischbach Gallery 1989: William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1988: Gallery 454 North, Los Angeles, CA 1987: Fischbach Gallery 1987: Gallery 454 North 1986: William Sawyer Gallery 1985: Fischbach Gallery 1984: Harris Gallery, Houston, Tx 1984: William Sawyer Gallery 1983, 1982: Fischbach Gallery 1981: William Sawyer Gallery 1980,1979: Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1976, 1975: William Sawyer Gallery 1973, 1972: William Sawyer Gallery Selected Group Exhibitions 2017: SHIFT / with Elizabeth Barlow, Kim Frohsin, Erin Parrish, Irene Zweig, Andra Norris Gallery, Burlingame, CA 2015: REAL with Elizabeth Barlow Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA. 2014: Stillness and Activity / A father and daughter exhibition, Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA. 2013: Outwin Boocher Portrait Competition 2013 Exhibition” Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Hey Everybody / Portraits, Diablo Valley College 2012: Artistic Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge”, George Krevsky Gallery, S.F., CA. Introduction Two/ Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA. 2011: California: A Landscape of Dreams/ Fresno Art Museum 2010: Self Portrait Invitational/ Julie Nester Gallery, Park City UT 2009: On Beauty /I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA. 2008: At Water’s Edge / I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA. 2007: San Francisco Scenes/ George Krevsky Gallery, S.F., CA Ten Years- A Retrospective/ Dolby Chadwick Gallery, S.F., CA. 2006: Our Planet, Our Home/ SFMOMA Artists Gallery, S.F. CA 2005: 2005 Spring Group Show/ Earl McGrath Gallery, L.A., CA 2002: H2O’02, Paintings of Water/ Fischbach Gallery, NYC Scene in Oakland 1852-2002 Oakland Museum Oakland, CA The Garden/ Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, CA The Moving Still Life/ Fischbach Gallery, New York, NY Bay Area Printmakers/ works from Trillium Press, Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, CA California Landscape Paintings/ College of Marin Art Gallery, Kentfield, CA Bay Area Printmakers/ SF Museum of Modern Art/Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA Visions: Northern California/ Bank of America, San Francisco, CA 2001: Opening Exhibit: Group Show, Fischbach Gallery, NY, NY 2000: Hackett Freedman Gallery Artists/ Shasta College Art Gallery, Redding, Ca 1999: Homage to the Art Institute, Artists Who Transformed American Culture, Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1999: What is Art For? What are Museums For? What are You For? curated Curated for the Oakland Museum by William T. Wiley & Mary Hull Webster, Oakland, CA 1998: Paintings of Marin County Past and Present/ The North Point Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1997: 10th Anniversary Exhibition/ Hackett Freedman Gallery, S.F., CA 1996: Rediscovering the Landscape of the Americas/ Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (traveling exhibition) Contemporary American Realist Painters/ Halls Crown Center Gallery, Kansas City, MO 1996: Foundation for the Future: Celebrating 125 Years at the San Francisco Art Institute/ One Bush St., S.F., CA 1996: New Work by Selected Gallery Artists, Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Flower Paintings/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA 1995: Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area / De Young Museum, S.F., CA Contemporary Still Life Painting/ David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, MI 1994: Still Life/ Fischbach Gallery, New York City, NY New Bay Area Painting/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA A Room with a View/ The North Point Gallery, S.F., CA 1993: Bay Area Painting/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA Vanishing Point: A Look at Contemporary Landscape Painting”, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA Tribute/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA Revolution: Into the 2nd Century at the San Francisco Art Institute, One Market Plaza, S.F., CA Contemporary Realism: Central and Northern California Landscapes/ Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA The Artist as Native: Reinventing Regionalism/ a traveling exhibition curated by Alan Gussow and Babcock Galleries, N.Y., NY 1992: A Day in the Country, California Landscape Painting / I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA West Art and the Law/ Weat Publishing Co., St. Paul, MN(traveling ex.) The New York Academy of Art, New York, NY In Support of Contemporary Bay Area Artists / One Market Plaza, S.F., CA 1991: The Landscape in 20th-Century American Art: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art/ New York, NY, National Traveling Exhibit 1990: Contemporary Landscapes/ 21st Anniversary Exhibition Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 1990: New Bay Area Painting Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA 1989: The Modern Pastoral/ Robert Scholekopf Gallery, New York, NY 1988: Images of the Land/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1988: Ten Artists from the William Sawyer Gallery / Shasta College Gallery, Redding CA Works on Paper/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1987: The Contemporary American Landscape/ Swain Gallery, NJ 1986: Landscape, Seascape, Cityscape/ Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA 1985: The Bay Area Seen/ Bay Area Regionalists Show, Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA Large Scale/ Harris Gallery, Houston, TX A City Collects/ Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco, CA American Realism/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1984: San Francisco Bay Area Painting/ curated by George Neubert for the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NE American Landscape Painting/ California State University, L.A. CA Western Landscape Painters/ The Museum of the West, Houston, TX The Urban Landscape / One Market Plaza, San Francisco, CA 1982: Collectors Gallery 16/ McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, TX Thirty Approaches to Realism/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA 1981: Views of California Past and Present/ Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA Landscapes/ Harris Gallery, Houston, TX 110th Anniversary S.F. Art Institute Alumni Group Show/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA 1980: Realism/ Walnut Creek Civic Arts Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA 1979: Bay Area Artists Exhibition/Sale/ Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA Omnium Gatherum/ Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA California Viewpoints/ Sunne Savage Gallery, Boston, MA 1978: New Work/ Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, CA Images of the Land/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA 1977: Contemporary California Artists/ Marshall-Meyers Gallery Alternative to the Whitney Annual/ James Yu Gallery, N. Y, N.Y. San Francisco Art Festival/ ( Airport Competition Purchase Prize) 1977: Eight Young Americans/ Montclair Museum of Art, Montclair,NJ 1976: Three From California/ Francine Sedars Gallery, Seattle, WA Faculty Show/ California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA 1975: Realism in Painting and Ceramics/ Helen Euphrat Gallery, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA 1975: A Tribute to the Art Institute/ Hansen Fuller Gallery, S.F., CA California Artists/ Utah Museum of Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT 1974: Our Land, Our Sky, Our Water/ by Alfred Frankenstein Expo 74, Spokane, WA A Sense of Place/ curated by Alan Gussow for the Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE The Discovery Gallery, Montclair, N.J. 1973: College of Marin Gallery, Kentfield, CA California Artists/ Kaiser Center, Oakland, CA 1972: Visiting Artists/ California State University, Hayward, CA 1970: Drawing Invitational/ Emanuel Walter Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, S.F., CA 1970: San Francisco Art Institute Centennial Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F., CA 1967: Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Annual, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F., CA 1966: California Landscape Painters/ San Francisco Art Institute, S.F. CA. Selected Collections The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Oakland Museum The Utah Museum of Fine Art San Francisco Art Commission Shaklee Corporation Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, CA Kemper Insurance Company, Long Grove, Il Morrison and Foerester, San Francisco, CA SSI Container Corporation, San Francisco, CA San Francisco International Airport Oxford Petroleum Company, Houston,TX California First Bank, San Francisco, CA United Pipeline, Houston, TX Security Pacific National Bank, S.F., CA Crocker Bank, Los Angeles, CA Visa Corporation, San Francisco, CA Atlantic Richfield Corporation Shell Oil, Houston, TX First National Bank of Seattle RREEF Corporation, San Francisco, CA Texas Heritage Society Genstar Corporation, San Francisco, CA Sohio Corporation Skidmore Owings and Merrill, N.Y.C., NY Chemical Bank, NY Swissre Corporation, NY The Insurance Company of North America First National Bank of Midland, Texas Commerce Bank AMA Headquarters, Washington, DC Hughes Tool, Houston, TX ATT, NY Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, San Francisco, CA IBM Corporation, San Jose, CA Northern Trust Company, Chicago, IL Smith Kline and French Corp., Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco, CA Republic National Bank Chevron Trammel Crow Company, Dallas, CA U.S. Insurance Group, N.J. Southwestern Bell Corp., MO Union Bank Pacific Bell United States Trust Company, NY The United Bank of Denver, CO Cigna Corp., Philadelphia, PA Atlantic Richfield Corp., Los Angeles, CA Show, Pittman, Pots and Trobridge, Washington, DC San Francisco Zen Center Hughes Aircraft Co. Los Angeles, CA Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M), St. Paul, MN Bank of America, NY Commerce Bancshares, Inc., Kansas City,MO Robinson Humphrey/American Express, Atlanta, GA Merrill Lynch, San Francisco, CA Goldman Sachs, NY Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., NY Victoria Bank and Trust, Victoria, TX NYNEX, NY Coca Cola, U.S.A., Atlanta, GA TransAmerica Corporation Pacific Telesis Group Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison Exxon Corporation U.S. Trust Selected Private Collections Estate of Ahmet Ertegun, New York, NY Mr. Harrison Ford, Los Angeles, CA Estate of Irving Lazarr, Los Angeles, Ca Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Holzer, New York, NY Mr. and Mrs. Peter Asher, Los Angeles, CA Mr. John Irvin, London, England Ms. Joan Didion, New York , NY Ms. Sabrina Guinness, London, Eng. Mr. and Mrs. Austin Hills, San Francisco, CA Mr. and Mrs. Peter Duchin Ms. Linda Ronstadt Ms. Faye Dunaway Mr . Peter Morton Mrs H.J. Heinze, New York, NY Mr. Rupert Lowenstein Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emery, San Francisco, CA Mr. Earl Mc Grath, New York, NY Mr. Nat Weiss, New York, NY Mr. Luca Barilla Mr. Bruce Schnietzer, New York, NY Dr. and Mrs. Robert Carroll, New York, NY Mrs. Nicholas Boyd, San Francisco, CA Mr. and Mrs. Robert Green, San Francisco, CA Mr. Chappy Morris, New York, NY Ms. Carla Kirkeby, Los Angeles, CA Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Caplow, Los Angeles, CA Mr. and Mrs. Robert Meyerowitz, New York, N.Y. Mr. and Mrs. Steven Gilsendaine Mrs. Caroline Cushing Graham, Los Angeles, CA Mr. Michael Nesmith, Los Angeles, CA Mr. Griffen Dunne, New York, N.Y. Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Erskine, Pasadena, CA Mr. N.J. Friedman, Hillsborough, CA Mr. Harold Hollingsworth...

Signed Lower Left Poskas was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, a small industrial city set on the banks of the Naugatuck River. He was interested in art as a child, but on entering ...

William Mason Brown was born in Troy, New York, where he studied for several years with local artists, including the leading portraitist there, Abel Buel Moore. In 1850, he moved to ...

Thomas Fransioli, born in 1906 in Seattle, Washington, trained as an architect at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked as an architect before his service in World War II. Largel...

Oil painting by Willard Dixon featuring figures enjoying a day at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Willard Dixon, who is one of the finest American contempora...

Oil painting by Willard Dixon featuring figures enjoying an evening at a beach. Willard Dixon, who is one of the finest American contemporary realist painters today, has painted coas...

"Apaches" is an oil on canvas painting by Olaf Wieghorst. The painting is signed on the lower left, "O-Wieghorst". The framed piece measures 25 1/2 x 29 3/4 x 2 in. “When the time comes for me to put away my palette and unsaddle my pony for the last time, I hope that my canvases will in some small measure add to the historical recording of an era, the cowboy, and the great American West.” ~ Olaf Wieghorst Wieghorst worked with the mounted patrol of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Cavalry (1920-1922) with occasional interludes as a wrangler on ranches in the western states. Wherever he went, he sketched and painted the Western culture he loved, often selling his work as calendar and magazine illustrations. His work appeared in Zane Grey...

Thomas Fransioli’s cityscapes are crisp and tidy. Buildings stand in bold outline, trees are sharp, and saturated color permeates the scene. But Fransioli’s cities often lack one critical feature: people. His streets are largely deserted, save for the rare appearance of figure and the occasional black cat scurrying across pavement. Instead, humanity is implied. Magic Realism neatly characterizes Fransioli’s viewpoint. First applied to American art in the 1943 MoMA exhibition “American Realists and Magic Realists...

Willard Dixon, 'San Francisco, Dusk' was painted in 2023. The original painting is 25 X 37 inches. Framed in a contemporary minimal hardwood, 25.5 x 37.5 inches. Ready to hang and en...

Joshua Shaw was a farmer’s son, born in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, and orphaned at the age of seven. After a boyhood of privation, he tried a number of occupations, until he finally apprenticed to a sign painter and found his métier. Shaw went to Manchester to study art, and by 1802 was in Bath, painting landscapes. In that year he began to exhibit his work at the Royal Academy in London. Essentially self-taught, Shaw achieved an impressive level of competence and versatility, producing portraits, floral compositions, still lifes, landscapes, and, cattle pieces. Shaw continued to send works for exhibition at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Suffolk Street Gallery, all in London, until 1841. (Although Shaw is regularly mentioned and frequently illustrated in a host of general books on American art history, as well as included in numerous historical survey exhibitions, the only monographic study of this artist is Miriam Carroll Woods, “Joshua Shaw [1776–1860]: A Study of the Artist and his Paintings” [M.A. thesis, University of California at Los Angeles, 1971]. Apart from short biographical sketches in various dictionaries and museum collection catalogues, the two most interesting references, both contemporary, are John Sartain’s personal recollections in The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, 1808–1897 [1899; reprint 1969] and an article in Scientific American from August 7, 1869, “Joshua Shaw, Artist and Inventor.” The article quotes extensively from an autobiographical document in the possession of Shaw’s grandson that Shaw prepared for William Dunlap...

Charles Temple Dix was born in Albany, New York, the youngest son of the distinguished statesman and soldier, General John Adams Dix. Having already visited Europe as a child, Dix re...

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