Early on, plein air pioneers in Europe broke new ground, among them great painters like Constable, Corot, and later,
Monet and friends. In America, the plein air movement continued, with painters like Weir, Robinson, Redfeld, Metcalf, and Hassam, who brought the movement to the East Coast (though the Hudson River School painters did some painting on location.) Later, painters like Wach- tel, Clark, Rose, Bischo , Payne, Wendt, and Redmond created a movement in the West.
Sadly, plein air painting went somewhat dormant, and few continued to paint outdoors in America. It wasn’t until decades later that a new set of pioneers starting going back outdoors.
When I came on the scene in 2004, instead of a handful of plein air painters, there were proba- bly a couple of hundred or so, and, thanks to those new pioneers, a movement started to grow. It was about that time that I launched PleinAir magazine. But the movement wasn’t big enough, and the magazine ultimately had to be closed. Galleries told me there was no interest in plein air painting, and potential advertisers told me they didn’t care about reaching plein air painters — there simply weren’t enough of them.
This is an excerpt from “The Movement That Is Changing The Art World“. Find the full article in the November / December 2016 Edition of PleinAir Magazine.
