See also
- Jeffrey Hein - American/UT realist artist
- Danny Grant - American/TX realist artist
- Graydon Parrish - American/TX realist artist
- Jacob Collins - American/NY realist artist
- Jeremy Lipking - American/CA realist artist
Bryan Lamont Larsen Jr. (born 1975) is an American realist painter, born in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 12, 1975.
Larsen was inspired by the figurative works of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and other nineteenth century European painters. He was educated at Utah State University and at the Grand Central Academy Summer Intensives. [1] Larsen's work includes architectural elements and figurative works, with themes emphasizing beauty, innovation, aspiration, and optimism for the future. His work can be found in private art collections around the world. His website, Bryan Larsen Fine Art, [2] contains a large catalog of his work and artwork that is available for purchase. He is represented by Quent Cordair Fine Art, [3] an art gallery in downtown Napa, California. Larsen has completed large commissions (>16 feet wide) and smaller works for private collectors and companies. Larsen is supportive of ongoing efforts by the Art Renewal Center, [4] a leading organization working to foster a re-emergence of realism and classical technique in art culture.
July 2016 - 'Saturn and Dione', Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalists, Art Renewal Salon, Port Reading, NJ [5]
July 2014/2015 – ‘Terra Incognita’ and ‘The Unknown Awaits’, Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalists, Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ [6]
July 2013/2014 – ‘Nocturne,’ 'Please Remain Calm' and 'Sense of Wonder', Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalists, Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ [7]
Feb 2013 – Bryan is accepted as an Art Renewal Center Living Master [8]
July 2012/2013 - 'Gracenote', Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ [9]
July 2011/2012 – ‘Between Chapters’, Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ
May 2011 – ‘Night Light’, Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalist Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ
May 2010 – ‘Muse and Medium’, Award of Merit Springville Museum Annual Spring Salon, Springville, UT [10]
May 2010 – ‘Contrast’, Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalist Art Renewal Center International Salon, Port Reading, NJ
May 2009 – ‘Deliberation’, Art Renewal Center Annual Salon Finalist, Art Renewal, Port Reading, NJ
Larsen expressed an interest in science, engineering, architecture, and particularly, space and space exploration at an early age. His family fostered his interests in these topics, and supported his growing art talent. His themes express an appreciation for natural beauty, including the human figure, and its integration within the natural landscape. Larsen seeks to create artworks that incorporate conservation-minded construction, materials, and techniques. About his work, Larsen has said, "... I am interested in continuing to portray themes of beauty, achievement, innovation, and aspiration, but more recently with an emphasis on narrative and an optimistic view of the future. To that end, I like to focus on subjects that incorporate these themes and are also suggestive of a not-too-distant future, and that portray a positive perspective. My goal is not to paint science fiction, but to express what I find important, beautiful, and inspirational about the world, the universe, and human kind’s place in it from a point of view in the future." [11]
Larsen's works also feature children and their capacity to imagine the future as an amazing and beautiful place in a sincere way. On this topic, Larsen says, "Children and their aspirations are favorite subjects of mine. As a parent, I envision a future for my children that is challenging, but also filled with possibility and wonder..."
Larsen has been featured on Artist-A-Day, [12] The Studio Podcast with Danny Grant, [13] and 15 Bytes magazine, a Utah-based art news outlet. [14] He has also been featured as a local artist at the Rose Wagner Arts Center and Theater in downtown Salt Lake City, UT.
Larsen lives in Salt Lake City, UT with his wife and three children. In addition to his successful artistic career, he also is an avid long-distance runner.
The Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah, United States is the oldest museum for the visual fine arts in Utah. In 1986, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As of 2022, the museum's director is Emily Larsen.
Cyrus Edwin Dallin was an American sculptor best known for his depictions of Native Americans. He created more than 260 works, including the Equestrian Statue of Paul Revere in Boston; the Angel Moroni atop Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City; and Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908), at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was also an accomplished painter and an Olympic archer.
Lane Jay Twitchell is a mixed media artist of visionary images. His intricately patterned abstract and semi-representational mixed media works are unmistakable. Twitchell mainly works in paint media, paper cutting, and collage. Cherie K. Woodworth wrote, “What Twitchell does is reinterpret the Western landscape— landscape as kaleidoscope, as a quilt made of paper, as a wide open world refracted in a giant, man-made snowflake. It is the landscape and the heart of the West—its natural grandeur, its history, its modern-day suburbs. Twitchell’s landscape is a labyrinthine desert rose blossoming in the midst of Manhattan.”
The Franklin S. Harris Fine Arts Center (HFAC) was previously the main location for Brigham Young University's (BYU) College of Fine Arts and Communications (CFAC). In early 2023, the building was demolished to make way for a new arts building on the same site.
John Hafen was a Swiss-born American artist, primarily of landscapes and portraits.
Brian T. Kershisnik is an American painter. He studied art at the University of Utah, Brigham Young University (BYU), and the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Art Renewal Center (ARC) is a non-profit, educational organization, which hosts an online museum dedicated to realist art. The ARC was founded by New Jersey businessman, author, and art collector Fred Ross.
Franz Mark Johansen was a Latter-day Saint sculptor and an emeritus professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). He has been called the founder of the LDS contemporary art movement that expresses spiritual belief through the human form.
Springville is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, that is part of the Provo–Orem metropolitan area. The population was 35,268 in 2020, according to the United States Census. Springville is a bedroom community for commuters who work in the Provo-Orem and Salt Lake City metropolitan areas. Other neighboring cities include Spanish Fork and Mapleton. Springville has the nickname of "Art City" or "Hobble Creek".
Kathryn Jean Finlayson is an artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is primarily known for her surrealistic paintings, which feature a diversity of styles and subject, including fantastic conceptualization of landscapes and animals, particularly horses. She stated " The ideas for my art come from dreams and imagination, and sometimes from impressions of memories of childhood." Her media is primarily oil paint.
Eric Roy Samuelsen was an American playwright and emeritus professor of theatre at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is considered one of the most important Mormon playwrights. He won the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) drama award in 1994, 1997, and 1999, and was AML president from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 he received the Smith–Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters.
Robert Liberace is an American realist artist. He attended the George Washington University, from which he received both his bachelor of liberal arts and masters of fine arts degrees. There he was also a recipient of a Morris Louis scholarship. Among his teachers was the painter Frank Wright, who he credits with having instilled into him a love of the old masters.
Stephanie Deshpande is a contemporary American painter, best known for her portraits and narrative paintings. She currently lives in northern New Jersey.
Kei Ito is a Japanese visual artist working primarily with installation art and experimental photography currently based in the United States. He is most known for his Sungazing,Afterimage Requiem, and Burning Away series.
Jim Rennert is an American figural sculptor, working primarily in bronze depictions of everyman figures in business suits. He grew up in the Southwest United States before moving to Dallas, where he became a businessman. After 10 years in the business world, Rennert took up sculpting, initially of children and sports figures. In 2004, he began his Everyman series of men in business suits for which he is best known. The Everyman series depicts figures in suits and deals with everyday challenges and struggles meant to be immediately relatable to any given viewer. He has had several public exhibitions of large-scale works, including in New York's Union Square and on Sixth Avenue, as well as the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in Palm Beach.
Camille Engel is a self-taught American realist painter currently living in Nashville, TN. Her diverse pictorial themes include contemporary still lifes, landscapes, fruits and flowers, trompe-l'œils, figuratives, and animal portraits. She is best known as a bird artist depicting sharply realistic, colorful birds of intricate detail and textures, characteristically breaking through torn trompe-l'œil holes in her art paper.
Chawky Frenn is a Lebanese-born American artist, author, and art professor. He currently teaches art at George Mason University in northern Virginia. His highly realistic paintings have strong narrative social and political elements. Frenn is a former Fulbright scholar, and currently resides in the Greater Washington, D.C. area.
Mary Lou Romney, born Mary Louisa Stone, was an American Painter who resided in Utah. Romney studied art at the University of Utah where she earned a BFA and then completed a Post Graduate Education Certification program. She continued her education at Utah State University where she earned an MFA with a minor in Education. She was a nationally recognized painter and illustrator. She taught briefly at Utah State University, then spent many years teaching at the University of Utah, and was involved in local and regional art organizations, exhibits, and contests.
Paige Crosland Anderson is an abstract painter from the United States.
Gustavo Ramos is a Brazilian-American fine artist and oil painter. He initially gained recognition for painting a series of realistic portraits that went on to receive national and international awards. In 2020, he was a featured artist at the Springville Museum of Art, where one of his paintings was acquired for the museum's permanent collection. In 2022, he was selected as a winner of Royal Talens' The Year of Rembrandt Award, when his work was displayed in the Rijksmuseum.