William Steeple Davis

Annie is a British painter and printmaker. She moved to New York City in 1989 and worked at the British Consulate. Art remained a part of her life during those years, but in 2006 she left and began a new chapter, returning to a life with art at the very center and enrolled in an MFA program at the The New York Academy of Art. This provided the instruction, immersion and creative freedom to develop her skills and artistic voice and proved to be a fruitful time bringing with it several awards including a postgraduate fellowship, Prince of Wales Scholarships and travel awards to Normandy, France and St Barts, in the French West Indies. After the fellowship, Annie left New York for the East End of Long Island and spent two wonderful years in the quiet hamlet of Orient, as Artist-in-Residence at the William Steeple Davis House. It was here that Annie met and became a studio assistant to Master Printmaker Dan Welden and continues to assist him at workshops in the North East, including Haystack School of Crafts in Maine, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and Montserrat College of Fine Arts. In 2011, Annie left the East End of LI and moved to Mystic Ct, where she maintains a studio at The Velvet Mill, in Stonington Ct. Annie’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.

It could be argued that cave walls were the canvases for the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict and elevate natural scenery through art, but there is a richer history to consider.

The Netherlands was home to landscapes as a major theme in painting as early as the 1500s, and ink-on-silk paintings in China featured mountains and large bodies of water as far back as the third century. Greeks created vast wall paintings that depicted landscapes and grandiose garden scenes, while in the late 15th century and early 16th century, landscapes were increasingly the subject of watercolor works by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo.

The popularity of religious paintings eventually declined altogether, and by the early 19th century, painters of classical landscapes took to painting out-of-doors (plein-air painting). Paintings of natural scenery were increasingly realistic but romanticized too. Into the 20th century, landscapes remained a major theme for many artists, and while the term “landscape painting” may call to mind images of lush, grassy fields and open seascapes, the genre is characterized by more variety, colors and diverse styles than you may think. Painters working in the photorealist style of landscape painting, for example, seek to create works so lifelike that you may confuse their paint for camera pixels. But if you’re shopping for art to outfit an important room, the work needs to be something with a bit of gravitas (and the right frame is important, too).

Adding a landscape painting to your home can introduce peace and serenity within the confines of your own space. (Some may think of it as an aspirational window of sorts rather than a canvas.) Abstract landscape paintings by the likes of Korean painter Seungyoon Choi or Georgia-based artist Katherine Sandoz, on the other hand, bring pops of color and movement into a room. These landscapes refuse to serve as a background. Elsewhere, Adam Straus’s technology-inspired paintings highlight how our extreme involvement with our devices has removed us from the glory of the world around us. Influenced by modern life and steeped in social commentary, Straus’s landscape paintings make us see our surroundings anew.

Whether you’re seeking works by the world’s most notable names or those authored by underground legends, find a vast collection of landscape paintings on 1stDibs.