“Songs for Lulu,” a new series of ethereal landscape paintings in oil by Boston painter Emmett Duggan on view December 8-31, 2011. Opening reception Thursday, December 8th, 5:30-7:30pm, 162 Newbury Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA.

About Emmett Duggan, b. 1977

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

I grew up in Huntington, Long Island not too far from the water in a wooded area on the north shore. It was there that I fell in love with hiking and mountain biking through the miles of trails known as the green belt trail, an 85-mile stretch of rocky terrain that dangled through the north shore and stretched down to the south shore. In my second year of high school, I began going to the Huntington School of Fine Art where I studied figure drawing, painting and sculpture. From there I was awarded a full scholarship to Boston University to study painting. I graduated in 1999 with a BFA in painting and focused on landscape painting for my senior thesis. Under the watchful eye of John Walker, I fell in love with landscapes and spent countless hours painting Halls pond and the BC reservoir.

I went on to study a more abstract approach to painting at the University of Pennsylvania. Studying under Robert Slutzky and John Moore, I focused more on a sublime approach to landscape-based abstraction and combined my love of paint with a more minimal way of making pictures. Brice Marden’s “Cold Mountain” paintings and Agnes Martin’s sublime grids were a source of inspiration and are close to my heart to this day. In Philadelphia, I continued to use landscape as a source of inspiration and brought my easel to Germantown for occasional on site work.

I spent my first year after my MFA teaching drawing and painting at the University of Pennsylvania. To this day teaching is an important part of my process, but at the age of 23 I had more life to live before I could own the role. I moved to New York to work in the Pace Wildenstein gallery. I learned a great deal about the wonders and darkness in the art world, and have held on to the heart of that world that inspired me. It was during my time working and living in New York that I found a reverence for the work of Robert Ryman. Inside his minimal vocabulary I saw great power in how he touched the paint.

I have lived and worked in Boston since 2006 and feel deeply that Boston is my home. Today, I live with my wife and daughter and make romantic landscape paintings that stem from the love and joy I experience in being a father. I believe that I make my best work when I am in touch with my daughter’s imagination and how the innocent mind invents play through the gaze of dreaming.

About Walker-Cunningham Fine Art

Established in 1979, Walker-Cunningham Fine Art is a fine art gallery specializing in American paintings, 1850-1950, and select contemporary artists. The gallery is located at 162 Newbury Street in an historic brownstone in Boston’s premier shopping district.

A full service gallery, Walker-Cunningham Fine Art welcomes the opportunity to work with collectors both new and established. With rigorous attention to quality and value, the gallery offers a range of services including buying, selling, and brokering; restoration and framing consultation; appraisal and auction representation; as well as access to the highest quality transport, storage and installation services.

We welcome your inquiry.

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