Plein Air and Art History

Throughout art history, it’s common to find generations of families with art as their vocation. Despite being less frequent today, there are artists alive today who find themselves part of a storied family tradition, including the talented Poppy Balser. What happens when artistic passion is not only inherited, but encouraged and supported in the younger generation?

So beloved was Tommy Macaione to his chosen hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, that after his death in 1992 a bronze statue of him painting en plein air was erected in a downtown park. When was the last time you saw a bronze statue of a plein air painter? Maybe one exists in Giverny, the Fontainebleau Forest, or possibly the Laguna coast, but I have not heard tell of one. What made this artist so worthy of a statue?

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - Members of the Ohio Plein Air Society and their guests recently gathered at a presidential library to...

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - Simon Bland is painting outdoors a lot these days. But it’s not primarily for finished pieces. In...

Rusty Jones had an early influence in his artistic development. A particularly strong one. Lead Image: “Hill Country,” by Avis Jones, 1922, oil, 10...

Philadelphia painter Mike Manley sees this N.C. Wyeth painting as a good example of what people really mean when they say a painting “looks...

In this occasional series, we talk to plein air artists about a piece of art that inspired them when they were young. This week,...

Olana, the estate of Hudson River School painter Frederic Church, wrapped up its annual plein air paint-out on October 18 with a reception, exhibition,...

Eugene Boudin (1824-1898) is rightly considered one of the forerunners of French Impressionism, and his influence was quite direct. As Claude Monet's first teacher,...

For several successive evenings in January 1879, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) made graphite drawings and pastel paintings during performances by a famous aerialist known as...

In the January 2013 issue of PleinAir, art historian Laurene Buckley, Ph.D., introduces readers to the artist once called the "discoverer of Monet." Ohio-born...

New England's Aldro T. Hibbard was a tough man with the charisma to lead a new and vibrant art community in Rockport, Massachusetts. Bob...

The History of Plein Air Painting Before the 19th century, landscape painting was used as the basis for allegorical and narrative themes. The landscape was...