Bill Sullivan Figurative Paintings

Modern, Hudson River School inspired landscape painting of a purple and yellow sunset in Venezuela Made in 1996 by Bill Sullivan oil on canvas, framed in thin natural wood frame 24 x 24 inches Signed, lower left This contemporary landscape painting was made by Hudson Valley based artist, Bill Sullivan, in 1996. Interested in the style of the Hudson River School painters such as Frederic Church and Thomas Cole, Sullivan sought to adapt traditional landscapes with a modern lens. During the 1980's and 90's, the Sullivan traveled in the footsteps of Frederic Church, capturing the same scenes the late artist made famous 100 years prior. Here the artist paints a luminous sunset over Maracaibo, a city in the northern region of Venezuela. Rays of yellow light radiate from the setting sun as it descends behind the purple ocean. Reflections from the sunset create almost technicolor hues in the sky. A warm yellow transitions into deep purple before fading into a subtle violet. A tropical forest, painted in stark black, decorates the foreground. The painting is complimented with a thin, natural wood frame and has wire on the back for installation. The artist's signature is located in the lower left corner in oil paint. About the artist's work by John Ashbery: With only a tinge of irony, Bill Sullivan makes new the vast spaces and swooning optimism of nineteeth-century Luminist painting. Reaffirming the contemplation of nature as its own reward, he also sets new tasks for painting and undertakes them with compelling eagerness. While there has been a tendency among some contemporary artists to present a revisionist view of the "great outdoors" of nineteenth-century landscape painters, Sullivan has no satirical agenda. After spending several years in South America amid the landscapes that attracted Frederic Edwin Church and Martin Heade, among others, he refined and strengthened this awesome imagery after returning to New York. A certain surreality floats though these vaporous visions of Columbia, though this may just be the result of Sullivan's careful documentation of scenes that looked unreal to begin with. About the Artist: Sullivan attended Silvermine College and earned an M.F.A. from The University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Fairfield Porter, Neil Welliver, Jane Freilicher, John Button and Rudy Burckhardt. He also studied privately with Josef and Annie Albers. In the late 1960s, Sullivan joined Bowery Gallery, an artist-run gallery that was dedicatedto figurative art. Later, when the Alliance of Figurative Artists was starting, Sullivan organized weekly panels and discussions at The Educational Alliance. Sullivan's first solo show at Bowery Gallery in 1970 included paintings depicting people, New York cityscapes and still lifes. After this show, Sullivan developed an interest in landscape painting. New York City, the Hudson River and Manhattan's West Side highway became his main subjects. He had several shows of these paintings at Bowery Gallery and continued to paint the Hudson River until the end of his life. At one of these shows he met art collector G. W. Einstein, who became his friend and represented him for many years. Sullivan had his first solo show at G. W. Einstein Company in 1978. In 1977, Sullivan met Colombian writer Jaime Manrique; they traveled to Colombia, where Bill painted the places that Frederick Edwin Church and Martin Johnson Heade had painted in the 1850s. In Colombia he had a solo show in the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art in 1978. The years following his return from South America was the period when Sullivan's work was most in display in New York City. Sullivan remained in New York City until 2001 where he had several solo shows. In 2002, he settled in Hudson, New York, where his two nineteenth-century heroes, Frederick Church and Sanford Robinson Gifford, had lived. He painted many of the sites Church and Gifford rendered on canvas. Resume: 2009 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2008 BCB Gallery, Hudson, NY 2007 BCB Gallery, Hudson, NY 2006 The Autobiography of Bill Sullivan: A Landscape Retrospective, The Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY 2005 Roxbury Art Group, Roxbury, NY Hudson River Views, Bonnie Andretta Fine Arts, Hudson, NY 2004 Indelible, Gallery 2/20, New York, NY Workshop Exhibition, Dannette Koke Fine Art, New York, NY 2003 The Gallery at The St. Charles, Hudson, NY Paintings of South America, Hudson, NY Painted City, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY Juried Art Show, Columbian Council on the Arts, Hudson, NY Made In Hudson, Artwalk, Hudson, NY 2002 Musselman Gallery, Hudson, NY 2001 HHA Gallery, Riverdale, NY The Landscape That Changed America, The Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY 1999 Silas-Kenyon Gallery, Provincetown, MA Greenwoods and Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK 1998 Suitcase Will Travel, Conductor’s Gallery, London, UK 1997 House/Scene, Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany Selected Prints, Atrium Gallery, Long Island City, NY Contemporary Selections, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY 1996 Uptown Gallery, New York, NY Eight Realists: Realism Then and Now, K & E Gallery, New York, NY Recent Acquisitions, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY Pencilvanians Drawn to New York, Pennsylvania Alumni Exhibition, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY New Acquisitions, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY 1995 Five Aspects of American Landscape Painting, Creiger Dane Gallery, Boston, MA New York City Views, Owen Gallery, New York, NY Increased Visibility, Leslie-Lohman Gallery, New York, NY American Realism, Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan Group Show, G.W. Einstein Co., New York, NY 1994 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Bowery Gallery, New York, NY Pride in Our Diversity, 24 Hours for Life Gallery, New York, NY Paint Props and Process, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY 1993 Celebration, G.W. Einstein Co, Inc., New York, NY Far Away Places Artists Who Travel, SSC&B Lintas Worldwide, New York, NY Group Show, John Szoke Gallery, New York, NY Art & Fantasy, Amos Eno Gallery and The Puck Building, New York, NY Organization of Independent Artists Benefit, Brook Alexander Gallery, New York, NY 19th & 20th Century Works of Art, Friends of OLANA Benefit, Hudson, NY 1992 New York Icons, Michael Ingbar Gallery, New York, NY Group Show, John Szoke Gallery, New York, NY Shanti Foundation Benefit Exhibition, Tatistcheff Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Contemporary American Landscape, World Art Collection in conjunction with Quatre Pieces Gallery, Yokohoma, Japan The Scarf, Bergdorf Goodman, New York, NY 1991 Urban Icons, Klarfeld Perry Gallery, New York, NY City Edge of Night, The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA Spirit of Place Dada Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan Group Show, Tatistchieff, Santa Monica, CA Group Show, John Szoke Gallery, New York, NY American Images, Crane Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; World Art Collection, Yokohama, Japan; Daimon Art Gallery, Sapparo, Japan; Beersheba Gallery, Osaka, Japan 1990 Susan Schreiber Gallery, New York, NY Tatistcheff Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Invitational Exhibition, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY Plein Air Painting: Capturing the Moment, Tatistcheff Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Land/Sea/Air, Steven Scott Gallery, Baltimore, MD Penn Prints: 30 Years of Printmaking at the University of Pennsylvania, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA A Little Night Music...

Male in Cape Cod Landscape (Contemporary Oil Painting of Figure on a Dock) by Bill Sullivan 36 x 84 inches oil on canvas, thin blonde wood stripping...

37 x 84 inches oil on canvas, unframed (thin wood stripping only) Contemporary landscape oil painting of the beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Deep blue tidal pools form in the for...