A contemporary artist whose work impresses me is Jerry Van Megert. Last year I posted about him here on the 2Blowhards blog, and two of the photos below are from that article.
As I mentioned on 2Blowhards, I could find little about Van Megert himself, and that remains the case. He was born in Oregon in 1938 and educated there. His main work is portraiture, but I haven't yet found any example of this on the Web.
This image of the Pebble Beach landmark is from the web site of Coast Galleries, which offers Van Megert's paintings and prints.
Van Megert's color scheme -- can I call it "clay-like"? -- isn't exactly locked into what an artist or even an ordinary viewer is likely to see when visiting the stretch of the California coast running for 60 or so miles south of Carmel. This frees Van Megert from the iron grip of the powerful California scenery that usually forces California landscape paintings to look somewhat alike no matter who does the painting. So what we see above is definitely California and equally definitely Jerry Van Megert.
5 comments:
I am very proud to say Van Megert is my uncle!
Jerry is a dear and cherished friend of our family and my mother's home is filled with portraits he did throughout the years. His ability to capture the essence of a person or scene with such economy is amazing. He is one kind and compassionate human being.
Jerry is awesome, I have two portraits at home and a beautiful painting he did of my hotel in pacific grove.....awesome......
i own a beautiful, large, snow scene of, i believe, Snowbird Utah, with a skier emerging from a beautifully shaded and indirect sunlit ski run, below majestic peaks and forested ridgelines - signed by Jerry Van Megert - it is one of my favorite pieces.
He did rich portraits of my family which we treasure.
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