Lot 95
Lockwood "Woody" Dennis (American, 1937-2012). "House, Brown" oil on canvas, 2000. Signed on lower left. A remarkable painting by Lockwood Dennis featuring a dramatic composition of juxtaposed planes and soft, natural forms that depict a large, brown house lined with verdant hedges atop a bright coral-hued lawn. The castle-like domicile displays a row of rectangular windows and a tapering spire that rises from the dark violet roof, piercing the pastel-toned sky. Note the juxtaposition of biologic and built realms. Lockwood seemed to enjoy capturing views where the natural and the manmade environments met. The joining of these disparate themes seems to parallel the painter's own style, known for its 'painterly' yet simultaneously graphic quality and allowing Lockwood to deliver the scenes through his modernist aesthetic with an emphasis on contrasting planes, geometry, and vibrant brushstrokes. Size without frame: 11" W x 14" H (27.9 cm x 35.6 cm); with frame: 11.5" W x 14.5" H (29.2 cm x 36.8 cm)
Lockwood "Woody" Dennis was driven to paint throughout his 45 year career and each canvas reveals new aspects about him as a person - his approaches to life, the environment, and art. During the early years, Woody was most influenced by the works of Post-Impressionist pioneers of early Modernism such as Cezanne and Matisse. As he evolved, Woody developed a graphic style that was informed by the style and imagery he created for his woodblock prints.
Dennis was quite eloquent and insightful when asked about his art. The following is an excerpt from the "On Impetus" section of his "Philosophical Musings on Painting": "The impetus to paint is always an experience - a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, it's not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience."
Dennis continued, "A painting starts with an exuberance. It's good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time - a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the cartoon character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or 'animate' it in the present."
Lockwood Dennis paintings have been collected by the following museums and organizations: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington; Seattle Art Commission, Seattle, Washington; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Swedish Medical Center Foundation, Seattle, Washington; Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington; Jefferson Museum of Art and History, Port Townsend, Washington; Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington; Clallam County Historical Society, Port Angeles, Washington; Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Winslow, Washington; US Library of Congress, Washington, DC; US State Department, Washington, DC.
Provenance: Lockwood Dennis Art Estate, Boulder, Colorado, USA
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#188025
- Condition: Painting is in excellent overall condition. Signed in lower left and again on verso with date and inventory number. Set in custom frame with suspension wire on verso for display.
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