Lewis Bryden

Lewis Bryden (born 1944) is an artist known for naturalistic landscapes – mainly of the Connecticut River valley. He also paints genre scenes and makes realism sculptures. Bryden's plein air paintings include Mexico, Cuba, Alaska, Russia, New York City and the American West. He has exhibited since 1973 at over 20 solo exhibitions and many group shows. Formally trained as an architect, Bryden is self-taught in the fine arts. His style is informed by his interest in rendering different kinds of light. Curator Martha Hoppin describes Bryden's method: “He paints the light in space, and then fills the space with nature.”

Bryden lives in New York City with his wife Elizabeth. His daughter, Nell Bryden, is a singer performing around the UK and Ireland. Bryden maintains studios in New York City and Hadley, Massachusetts. In Hadley, he paints in his home or on a houseboat on the Connecticut River.

Background From an early age, Bryden knew he wanted to be an artist. When he was nine years old, he won second place in a statewide children's art competition. That same year he sold a watercolor out of a children's exhibit at the Norton Museum of Fine Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. “That sealed it for me,” Bryden remembers. He graduated from Yale (B.A.1966) and from Graduate School of Design at Harvard (M.A. 1970). While making a living as an architectural renderer, Bryden continued to develop his technique as an artist by going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where he spent hours copying masterpieces.

“The best place to study the art that interested me was in the museum… I set my easel up in front of one masterpiece after another, copying from Velasquez, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Titian, Hals, and of course Rembrandt. I also copied Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro among the Impressionists. It was here, that I began to see the common thread of art that moved me, and why contemporary art had failed to do so. The subjects of these paintings were people from across the ages who were also like us, and they were captured in believable human moments.”

It wasn't until 1988, when Bryden moved to Massachusetts, that his dream of supporting himself as a professional artist became a reality. He continued to do architectural work but began selling more canvases as area art buyers discovered his paintings of local landscapes. “It’s a beautiful spot and people like to see things they know. That allowed me for the first time to sell enough to live on.”

Landscapes Bryden paints three basic types of landscapes: panoramic views, waterscapes and architecture in landscape.

Bryden's best-known works are his panoramic views, usually from Mt. Holyoke in Hadley, Mass. In this work, he focuses on nature as a paradox. Bryden says, “Nature up close is wild and brutal, but from a distance it is serene and ordered.” In all of his landscapes he emphasizes nature over man.

Colorado Bryden has taken several painting trips to Colorado and the neighboring states of New Mexico and Arizona. He enjoys the spectacular scenery in the mountains and the dramatic seasons.

Glacier Bay Basin. Alaska For an artist who pursues light, Alaska is a natural setting. Bryden has gone to Glacier Bay, Alaska to capture the unusual lighting conditions there. In the Alaskan summer, painting could be done in natural light from very early morning to nearly the middle of the night.

Coney Island Bryden has painted a series he calls ‘’Boardwalk Idyll’’ that spans over 30 years of work. The series, which explores the eternal summer of adolescence, was exhibited at the Brooklyn Public Library in 2004 and later at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts. In a talk about this series, he states “Other artists before me have used Coney Island, each in his own way. I started studying the work of Reginald Marsh, David Levine, and the photographer Bruce Davidson. My own particular inspiration was a fascination with people in public places who are acting out their private dramas.”

Bryden's method for these pieces was inspired by the “crust of paint” on impressionist Claude Monet’s work “Water Lilies.” Bryden developed his own textured sculptural-style technique to create the surface texture for his Boardwalk paintings. To “mimic the atmospheric conditions of a hot summer day,” Bryden mixes Neo Megilp with 50% stand oil to coat his canvas. He then adds pigment and varnish, “as much as the canvas will take.”

With the bustle of the Boardwalk, Bryden relies on sketches and photographs as well as sessions with live models for his pieces. A few paintings were inspired by a box of Kodachrome slides he found of a couple. The slides captured scenes similar to the ones he had been painting. As there was no way to identify the owners to return the slides, he used the images as an inspiration for several pieces.

Art projects Portraits While Bryden has done many portraits, he does not consider himself a portrait artist and has never taken a commission for a portrait. He usually paints friends and family and occasional professional models. He has done a few self-portraits, but they have rarely been exhibited.

Bryden is very interested in the relationships and stories of people he paints. He is attracted to stories of artists and the relationships they have with the muses that inspire them.

Sculpture As with the rest of his art, Bryden's sculpting technique is mainly self-taught. He has recently been doing more sculpture, having entered this mode after he learned one of his models was allergic to turpentine. His time with the model was limited and he wanted to capture her features, so he turned to the medium of clay. He later learned the process of bronze sculpture and stone carving. His most recent commission, Nature as Muse, is a life-size bronze in the Mallinckrodt Garden at the art center called View in Old Forge, NY.

Gallery

Exhibitions R. Michelson Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts. Casa Frela Gallery, New York City. Vail International Gallery, Vail, Colorado Metropolitan Gallery, Austin, Texas

Commissions Nature as a Muse – Mallinckrodt Garden Streams of Living Water – MD Anderson Cancer Center Rocio – Chicago Hospital for Women and Children

Awards and collections Beginning early in his career, Bryden received numerous awards, such as the Silvermine Guild Award, first prize 1985 (Carolyn Lanchner, juror) and Mid Hudson Arts Competition 1985, second prize (Barbara Haskell, juror). In 2009 the Springfield Art Museums acquired two Bryden landscapes — "The Beginning of the Day" and "The End of The Day."