Dennis Sheehan Oil on Canvas

Dennis Sheehan (American, 1950 - Current) oil on canvas landscape; signed to lower right "Sheehan"; measures approximately 31" x 35-1/2" in gilt frame with a sight image of approximately 24" x 29-1/2".Dennis Sheehan was born in Boston in 1950, lives and works in New Hampshire. Sheehan has works in major public and private collections, including the White House. He paints in the Barbizon (realist) mode with remarkable authority and faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature's changing seasons. The contemporary work of Sheehan is similar to that of his great 19th century predecessor George Inness. Like Inness, whose influence is consciously acknowledged, Sheehan employs the dark palette and thickly pigmented surfaces of the French Barbizon School. Maintaining a muted tonalist chromatic scheme, Sheehan, like Inness before him, has temerity to eschew picturesque scenery in the interest of evoking atmospherics and the appearance of the natural world as it is observed. Optical truth combined with poetic resonance—the search for some ineffable quality of nature beyond words–constitutes the probity of his art. Yet, also like Inness, Sheehan's paintings are produced in the studio. His work is the product of the conscious distillation of prior imagery ranging from the American Barbizon to the abstractions of Franz Kline.