OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007, FROM 5 - 7PM
Lockwood de Forest was born to a prominent New York family in 1850. On a trip to Rome in 1868, De Forest embued his youthful interest in drawing and painting with purpose by enrolling at the Corridi School. While on the same trip, he accompanied famed American landscape artist, Frederick Church, on a jaunt to sketch and paint the acropolis at Athens. Church saw talent and continued to teach Lockwood through the mid 1870s in New York and at his home in Olana.
De Forest forged his career in architectural and decorative design through his interest in Orientalism and his association with Louis Comfort Tiffany, but he also made time to paint. While the artist made a small body of large, finished landscape paintings in his studio, it was the sketch that really set him apart as an artist. With confident brushwork, a rare sensitivty to color and atmosphere, and a forward-looking sense of composition, De Forest created a body of work which continues to invoke the sublime for a new generation of artists and collectors.