$765.00
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Lockwood “Woody” Dennis (American, 1937-2012). “Paintings 1″ oil on canvas, 1995. Signed on lower right. An exciting painting by Lockwood Dennis that features a montage of urban scenes inspired by his time in various American cities – Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and more. Amidst Dennis’ renderings of skyscrapers, industrial buildings, bridges, and automobiles is an intriguing depiction of a dirigible beneath a smokestack. Paintings like this example were very much informed by Dennis’ woodcuts for which he took great inspiration from vintage cast-metal toy cars, trucks, and construction vehicles, comic art, Japanese woodblock prints, and WPA era industrial design. A wonderful painting in which Dennis juxtaposed urban views with a glistening rosy sky punctuated by floating clouds – taking care to demonstrate that nature is ever present – mounted in an attractive custom frame. Size: 24″ L x 36” W (61 cm x 91.4 cm)
Lockwood “Woody” Dennis was driven to paint throughout his 45 year career and each canvas reveals new aspects about him as a person – his approaches to life, the environment, and art. During the early years, Woody was most influenced by the works of Post-Impressionist pioneers of early Modernism such as Cezanne and Matisse. As he evolved, Woody developed a graphic style that was informed by the style and imagery he created for his woodblock prints.
Dennis was quite eloquent and insightful when asked about his art. The following is an excerpt from the “On Impetus” section of his “Philosophical Musings on Painting”: “The impetus to paint is always an experience – a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, its not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience.”
Dennis continued, “A painting starts with an exuberance. It’s good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time – a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the cartoon character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or ‘animate’ it in the present.”
Lockwood Dennis paintings have been collected by the following museums and organizations: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington; Seattle Art Commission, Seattle, Washington; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Swedish Medical Center Foundation, Seattle, Washington; Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington; Jefferson Museum of Art and History, Port Townsend, Washington; Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington; Clallam County Historical Society, Port Angeles, Washington; Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Winslow, Washington; US Library of Congress, Washington, DC; US State Department, Washington, DC.
Condition: Signed on lower right. Signature, inventory number and date (“279 Jul. 95” ) handwritten on the verso of the canvas. Mounted in a custom wooden frame. One area of slight loss to the back of the frame. Otherwise frame is excellent and fit with suspension wire.
Provenance: Lockwood Dennis Art Estate, Boulder, Colorado, USA
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