Patrick McDonnell and old masters.

My artwork and portraits reflect my deep understanding of traditional art, with a vast knowledge of anatomy based on my work as a professional medical illustrator, while I embrace a modern perspective. I have learned from many old masters.

Early Apprenticeship

When I was 8 years old I studied pastel painting with Mr and Mrs Goetz. At the age of 10 I began art lessons with Mr Howard Wexler and Siegfried Hahn who taught me how to paint in oil colors. I studied for 7 years in France, Germany and New Mexico - I learned how to draw and paint in a realistic manner using academic principles. They taught me how to paint using the techniques and mediums of the old masters rediscovered by Jacques Maroger (see below)

Academic schools

My portrait in oils of Marcia Beauregard was accepted into the prestigious New Mexico fair art show in the adult category - while I was sitll in high school. I won a Hallmark Cards Scholarship to the Ringling School of Art. Based on my first year of student work at Ringling the faculty awarded me a second scholarship. 

For 4 years I lived in Paris France where I studied at two of France's prestigious schools of art;  the National Academy of Beaux Arts school and the National Academy of Arts Decoratifs.  During my first days in France I made the acquaintance of an academic painter, Jean Lefeuvre, who invited me to visit  his  studio next to the Delacroix atelier - museum in the Latin Quarter. Mr Lefeuvre was over 90 years old when I met him and still drawing and painting. I would often visit him with fellow student artists. He was a link to the past - he had known Degas - witnessed the building of the Eiffel tower and had traveled all over Europe and Africa. He taught me how to do luminous water colors.

While in France I applied for and became an official copyist in the Louvre museum where I spent many days copying Rembrandt, Mategna and Ingres. I also drew from statues and anatomical dissections. I traveled extensively throughout Western and Eastern Europe to visit Art museums. During my student years I supported myself with the sale of my artwork in yearly one man shows. I was commissioned by a collector of racing cars to do drawings of his race cars at the Mas du Clos, France. I was awarded a The Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship to study and live in Paris in an artist's studio at the Cité Universitaire 1974-75. 

Master of arts Medical Illustration Degree

Because I was fascinated by the human body (like Leonardo da Vinci) I enrolled in premedical courses that qualified me to enter into a graduate school course in medical illustration at the University of Texas Health Center in Dallas; I obtained my Masters of Arts post graduate degree in 1981. Medical illustration is probably the most academic of all art careers, requiring intelligence, drawing skills and medical knowledge. 

In my first job at Bayor school of Medicine, I was mentored by the talented medical illustrator, Barry Baker, who had studied with Jacques Maroger in Baltimore. During my professional career as a medical artist I have had the privilege of working with many outstanding medical doctors, scientists and surgeons. In the past few years I have studied psychiatry and even asked to co-teach an introduction to psychiatry for the layman at the Douglas Hospital with Drs. Gert Morgenstern and Charles Cahn. An understanding of the human mind is an asset in art.

I was one of the first artists to realize that the digital age of art had arrived. Working as a paid consultant in the early 1980s in England at Quantel limited, I learned how to use their Paintbox system - the precursor of most 2D paint programs used today. In Montreal I also learned how to create 3D images using Sofimage 3D software - the same software that lauched the Computer Generated software revolution. Over the years I have been a beta tester for Apple and other software companies. Therefore, I am am fully aware of the abilities and shortcomings of the digital image - I use my computer skills in my work.

More information on Jacques Maroger

Quotation from introduction by Paul A. Chew, Ph.D. to Joseph Shepard book on Portraiture:

<<Jacques Maroger (b 1885 d 1962). Maroger was formally the Technical Director of the Laboratory of the Louvre in Paris and President of the Restorers of Art in France.

It is of interest to note that Maroger's teacher was the French artist Louis Anquetin (1961-1932), who during his lifetime was referred to as the Michelangelo of France, recognizing his gift as a superb draftsman. Anquetin was a close friend of Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec ,and they painted portraits of each other. Vincent Van Gogh was also a mutual friend of Anquetin and together they founded a style of painting called "Cloisonism" and Anquetin's painting "Avenue de Clichy, Five O'clock", 1887, directly influenced Van Gogh's oil "Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles", 1888. Anquetin quit the group of French Impressionists, saying that none of them knew how to draw. He then went back to the museums to study the works of the old masters, Rubens, Hals and Rembrandt, earnestly trying to rediscover their lost secret painting techniques. The remaining years absorbed his time and he was virtually forgotten.

Maroger studied and worked with Anquetin and continued his teacher's research into the old masters' mediums and techniques. While at the Louvre, Maroger was credited with the discovery of the first oil painting medium of the 15th century artist Jan Van Eyck, receiving the "Legion of Honor" for his research. On the eve of World War II, Maroger moved to New York City where he met Mrs. Robert Garrett, a patron of the arts and an amateur painter. Mrs. Garrett's family built and owned the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and was instrumental in building the first railroad in Russia. Mrs. Garrett persuaded Maroger to go to Baltimore and give her private lessons.

The French artist Raoul Dufy (1887-1953) and the Austrian George Groz (1893-1959) were known to Maroger and also came to the United States in the 1930's and met Maroger at Mrs. Garrett's home. Before leaving Europe Maroger became the technical advisor for Raoul Dufy while he was painting the large mural "Electricity" for the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. He used the Maroger medium for the painting.

Maroger was asked to teach at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore. Joseph Sheppard became Maroger's student for his four years of study at the Institute and continued his artistic relationship until Maroger's death. While teaching at the Institute Maroger formed a group of artists that used his medium for paintings based on the principles of 17th century painters. Those artists exhibited together at the Grand Central Galleries in New York City. The group included Maroger, Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Joseph Sheppard and other students from the Institute.>>