Robert Sarsony Paintings

Realist landscape of a winter forest by Robert Sarsony. Oil on board, circa 1970. Signed lower right. Displayed in a giltwood frame. Image size, 18"L x 14"H, overall 20.5"L x 16.5"H

Robert Sarsony was born in 1938 and is a self taught painter. Sarsony's style is called Modern American Realism. He has been inspired by book and magazine illustrations from the 1920's through the 1940s. Subjects range from silent movie photographs and pictures of important historical events to reproductions taken from period children's books. Sarsony also portrays figure and landscape subjects with an attention to light effects that give his canvases an impressionistic air. In His Own Words "I've done quite a few model paintings. It seems I always have another idea or pose for what I call my "Model Series". The titles usually begin with "Model". Sometimes the model is taking a critical look at the work in progress on the easel. At other times I show the model dressing or undressing or just resting. In my "Deco Series" the subject is usually shown with a few objects that suggest a setting against a white background. In the "Post Card Series” I combine images of early cars, planes, ships, etc with images of old post cards, playing cards or other early collectible cards from cereal boxes or cigarette packs. Mostly I use images of girls--sometimes based on actual cards and sometimes invented. The cards are painted so they appear to be real cards tucked into the frame of the painting. Robert Sarsony's hard work has paid off. His paintings hang in many prominent collections and museums, including the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, and the American Embassy Collection in Washington, D.C. Robert Sarsony was much influenced by the Impressionists, but not so much by their brushwork as by their conceptual approach to color and structure and their interest in expressing mood. obert Sarsony is a self-taught painter and printmaker who began exhibiting in local shows in New Jersey in 1963. The following year he made his New York debut in a group show at Allied Artists. From 1969 until about 1974 he did a series of paintings based on book and magazine illustrations—“pop antiques...