Stark rock outcrops towering over desert vistas, waves breaking on a coastal paradise, billowing clouds over serene mountain settings—for many years, those were the images that Glenn Dean most frequently chose to celebrate on canvas. Recently, however, he has expanded his subject matter to encompass the realm of figurative work, as well. “In my early landscapes I avoided painting figures as a way of purifying the landscape,” he says. “People were included on a small scale to show the enormity of a canyon wall, or the size of the clouds. However, beginning in 2012, I transitioned into painting a lot
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Archives for Dean, Glenn
Western Art: An Evolving Story
In the late 19th century, Western artists were, in essence, historians of the American West. James Catlin, Hudson River School artists Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran and others created realistic paintings that told the story of Indians, white pioneers, and unspoiled landscape. Other well-known artists, such as Frederic Remington and Charlie Russell, expanded the genre into action scenes depicting the disappearing Wild West. In more recent history, illustrators such as Howard Terpning, Frank McCarthy, Bob Kuhn, and Howard Rogers, continued to document the Western story, but from a more contemporary standpoint. Does that mean there is a Western art revolution,
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Simplicity and Truth
While a passion for simplicity might seem to be a bit of a dichotomy for someone born and raised in the vibrantly active Southern California beach community of Torrence, 38-year-old landscape painter Glenn Dean emphasizes this is the quality he strives for, both in his personal lifestyle and most decidedly in the creation of his dramatic Western landscapes, which portray nature in its most basic forms. Glenn Dean (California) Land of Titans Oil 30″ x 30″ “I’m drawn to the big, simple shapes found in the canyons of the Southwest. I liked the monumental silhouette of this mesa in the
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