A Beautiful Morning
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)
Judith Reeve grew up along the Delaware River, not far from Chadds Ford and at the age of nine, met Andrew Wyeth. This meeting, in hindsight, was a pivotal moment allowing her to recognize the possibility of painting being a vital life-long pursuit. Although Reeve presently lives in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in New York, she continues to live along the Delaware River painting the river and the surrounding farms nestled within the mountains.
Reeve studied at the Lyme Academy of Fine Art under the tutelage of Deane G. Keller, master draftsman and painter of the figure. The Academy based its curriculum on the 19th century French ateliers, where students worked intensively from the live model daily. It was here, in the former artist colony of the Lyme Impressionists, which included Childe Hassam, that Reeve began her pursuit of plein aire landscape painting.
The Lyme Impressionist sense of light and color and their ability to capture the movement of nature continues to influence her work today. Reeve works in oils, generating her palette to achieve harmonious tones. She paints alla prima, wet into wet, and lays colors on directly corresponding to her observation.
Travel has remained part of her painting routine, with trips to the coast of Maine and Downeast over the past 5 years as well as the high peaks of the Catskill Mountains and the high desert canyons of New Mexico, including numerous excursions throughout New England and Upstate New York.
Reeve continues to be inspired by the works of American painters, most notably Robert Henri, the influential mentor to Bellows, Hopper, Sloan and Rockwell Kent. Reeve spent four years independently studying Henri’s personal archive, which is housed at Yale’s Beinecke Library. The result of those studies is most notable in her strong independent sense of color.
Check out: JudithReeve Website
Pleasant Valley
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)
Small Falls
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)
Snow Fields
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)
Stonewall
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)
Surf
Oil on board, 2017
Size: H 6” x W 8”
Signed: Yes, front (initials)