Biography
The ability of a work of art to uplift our spirits is its greatest attribute. If it can inspire and transport the viewer to another level beyond the material or the visual, then it has accomplished something beyond the physical act of its creation.
I am inexorably drawn to the sea. I’ve painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes, but the effects of sun and clouds over the water are the most compelling. They also demand everything the palette has to offer—and more. I'm painting form but always prospecting for light, striving to see a deeper harmony, to open the door to pure energy.
Born in 1943, David grew up and studied in Massachusetts, graduating from Williams College with an Art History degree in 1965. He also attended the Yale Summer School of Music and Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He started drawing at an early age, particularly inspired by the illustrations of Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth in books from his father's childhood.
Although graduating from college as an aspiring fine artist, it was not until the mid-1980s that he made a full commitment to painting. The intervening years saw various detours into the pop culture of the day and then stints as a carpenter, including five years at Hollywood film studios.
A year in Somerset in the Southwest of England, provided a new beginning and he started painting outdoors there in 1983. Plein air painting back in California for a year-and-a-half on the Big Sur and Mendocino coasts resulted in his first one-man show in 1986. That was followed by seven years painting in Sedona, Arizona including summers on the coast of Maine. Longing for the sea during the Southwest winters convinced him to return to the northern California coast, where he again made Mendocino his home for many years. David recently moved to Southern California where he still lives close to his favorite subject: the sea.
David's work has been featured in galleries across the country and in Japan. Articles about him have appeared in American Artist, Southwest Art, American Art Collector and Art of the West. His paintings hang in a number of corporate collections including Bank of America, Fluor Corporation, and Raymond James Financial, Inc.
David is a Signature Artist Member of the California Art Club.