From childhood, artist Bill Suys was nurtured with a simple principle: have no excuses, work hard, and the rest will come. His mother and father, who both triumphed over deafness to live full and fruitful lives, were loving embodiments of this powerful message. Suys has continued this legacy, which has led the painter from S.C. Johnson to the walls of top galleries and private collections.

Although Bill Suys has taken many turns and paths to his current position as one of our nation’s most talented painters, art was a constant. “I’ve always been an artist,” he says. “From my earliest days I always drew a lot. If I was watching TV, I would be laying on the floor with some kind of scratchpad or whatever I could find. I would fill page after page of little drawings. It was simply what I did — what I always did.” Be that as it may, the art world of the 1960s and 1970s wasn’t conducive to Suys’s artistic vision, which centered on tradition, representation, and works from Andrew Wyeth, Rembrandt, and Vermeer.
 

Bill Suys, “Anvil at the Ready,” oil on linen, 14 x 18 in. (c) Bill Suys 2016

As a result, Suys earned a business degree after he completed his art major at the University of Minnesota. A pivotal moment in the artist’s career was his employment with S.C. Johnson, beginning in the art department and then on to a number of other roles, which is where Suys really began to hone his artistic philosophy, one built on the importance of awareness and preparation. “I felt that if I could develop my craft, then my artistic vision could freely and fully manifest itself.” 
 

Bill Suys, “Buds,” oil on linen, 24 x 48 in. (c) Bill Suys 2016

Suys says, “Key to artistic improvement is ‘paying attention,’ or awareness. Artists must build their visual awareness of the world around them while becoming ever more sensitive to its translation, such as edge, color, and shadow, while also building emotional understanding; both of which form an individual and singular aesthetic. What do brush pressure and speed do to edges, form, and presence? It’s not just about understanding surface, but also understanding oneself. The second factor is preparation: developing the skills, techniques, and processes to execute a vision to the fullest.” 
 

Bill Suys, “Reverie,” oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in. (c) Bill Suys 2016

Suys’s works are characterized by their diverse subject matter, which includes still life, figurative, landscape, plein air, wildlife, and portraiture — evidence of his ability to recognize beauty all around him, extending well beyond his home in the picturesque Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin. Indeed, no subject seems to escape Suys, who feels compelled to “capture and re-present the beauty and spirit in all things,” he says. “My goal, and really my challenge, is to visually leave a spirit that speaks on its own. I hope to create works that illuminate a greater depth that exists in our world, perhaps a bit of soul.”
 

Bill Suys, “The Storyteller,” oil, 12 x 16 in. (c) Bill Suys 2016

As his illustrious career continues to ascend, Suys will undoubtedly continue to probe the mysterious beauty of our natural world. He suggests, “I try to dig down to my core principles and work from my heart to create a painting. The more I paint and the farther I get down this path, I hope to be able to do that better and more effectively.” There can be little doubt that Suys has already mastered — to a degree — this principle as his resume and list of gallery representation and awards continue to lengthen.
 
To learn more, visit Bill Suys.
 
This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.
 

by Max Gillies

Everyone has one, so everyone is interested, to a lesser or greater degree.  I’m referring to the face.  Artists have been depicting faces for millennia, sometimes flatteringly and sometimes frankly, but always with the understanding that every viewer has a direct connection with the subject—and also a way of assessing the rendition’s accuracy.

Just as important is the way we “read” facial expressions: there are happy and sad, for example, but also every possible emotion and mood between.  Capturing each is no easy task, so we instinctively admire those artists who get it right.

Enjoy this diverse array of approaches, and please tell us about other artists who excel in this area.

What’s the story behind America’s romance with 19th-century French art?

The National Gallery of Art in Washington has curated 68 paintings for a dazzling exhibition to answer that question. “America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” tells the compelling story of how collectors, curators, dealers, and directors of the early 19th century cultivated American taste for French art. Whether it is the decorative canvases of rococo artists such as François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard or the sober neoclassicism of Jacques Louis David, the exhibition brings together the best and most unusual examples of French art of that era held by American museums.

“America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” opens on May 21 and will be on view through August 20. To learn more, visit the National Gallery of Art.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Teachers and parents of aspiring young artists will want to attend the world’s first Atelier Art Education Day in New York City. Who are the esteemed sponsors to be on hand, and when? Details here!

Sponsored by the Da Vinci Initiative, the world’s first Atelier Art Education Day will take place May 19 and includes free portfolio reviews, free artist demonstrations, and free admission into the Art Renewal Center’s (ARC) Salon exhibition. In addition to world-class artists, representatives of the Florence Academy of Art and Studio Incamminati will be in attendance. Atelier Art Education Day will be held between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Salmagundi Club in New York City.

To learn more, visit The Da Vinci Initiative.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

If you’re headed to Paris this spring there’s still time to catch a viewing of this fantastic exhibition at the Louvre Museum. Who knows — you just might leave shaking your own tail-feathers.

The Classic Greeks were some of the first artisans (that we know of) to have become fascinated with how the human body moves in space — and how to capture that in bronze, marble, and paint. A fun and inventive exhibition at the Louvre Museum, Paris, is exploring how this enchantment continued through the creative vision of some of art history’s greatest artists.

“Artworks are by nature static,” the museum writes, “but artists were trying to anatomize movement long before chronophotography came along and opened up new perspectives for them in the late 19th century. In their efforts to capture movement, avant-garde artists like Degas and Rodin turned to the world of dance. Around 1900, drawing on antiquity and the work of dancers like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, and Nijinsky, the discipline underwent its own revolution: an innovative gestural repertoire and a break with classical ballet that foreshadowed modern dance. Thus choreography and the visual arts intermeshed.”

The museum continues,  “Observing works from the Louvre and its partners will help visitors appreciate the challenge conveying movement represents for artists, and the solutions they have come up with, using the different materials and techniques available to them. Walking, running, stopping in your tracks — not to mention such ‘movements of the soul’ as terror: What conventions govern representation of the movements and postures involved?”

Titled “The Body in Movement: Dance and the Museum,” the exhibition runs through July 3. To learn more, visit the Louvre Museum.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.