Dennis Sheehan (b. 1950)

Dennis Sheehan has work in major public & private collections, including the White House. Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority & 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.

“Today, in a cultural firmament that has been defined as Postmodern, a new generation of American painters is returning to the old landscape seeking a renewed vision. The cultural strategies that they employ are as diverse as any from the past; in most cases, these painters consciously strive to enter into a dialogue with the history of the White Mountains art. Their work, grounded in a sophisticated appreciation of what has come before, is in many cases deliberately discursive with a tradition that has been all but erased twice by historical and cultural forces.
The contemporary work of Dennis Sheehan, for example, affords a great nineteenth-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-his Conway Meadows avoids any reference to the traditional climax view of Mount Washington—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. For all of the references to history—and there are multiple—there is no mistaking the artist’s debt to the more recent past. Without the legacy of action painting, Sheehan’s art would be less forceful and evocative than it is.”

McGrath, Robert L. Visions in Granite; Two Hundred Years of Paintings in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Portsmouth: Blue Tree, 2006

A Few Meaningful Quotes
"A work of art does not appeal to the intellect, it's aim is not to instruct, but to awaken an emotion."
George Inness - 1884

"Landscape painting should not be painted for the sake of beauty alone, but rather, through the landscape something significant may be reached, something close to the spirit of nature. Within it should be the story of the soul. It should resonate to a deep, sincere feeling."
Alexander Korovin - 1891

"The painterly content of a picture is greater than the subject matter; the more the subject has been subordinated to the pictorial form, the greater the painter."
Max Liebermann - 1904

Exhibitions
2000 One Man Show, Portnoy Galleries, Carmel, California
1995 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts 
1994 Alfred J. Walker Fine Art, Boston Massachusetts
       The Crane Collection, Boston Massachusetts, "Living Artists 
       Enrico Donati Gallery, Newburyport, Massachusetts, three artist exhibition
       Powers Gallery, Acton, Massachusetts, "Reflection In Bloom"
       A.R.A. Gallery, South Hamilton, Massachusetts
1991 Krystal Gallery, Warren, Vermont
1987 Sharon Arts Center, Sharon, New Hampshire
1986 Peterborough Savings Bank, Peterborough, New Hampshire
1985 Bravos Gallery, Georgetown, Massachusetts