Dan Beck says impressionistic painting was his first love, but when he began his career as an artist, he hardly saw any contemporary examples of people pursuing traditional painting professionally. Because of this, he didn’t consider it a “real” possibility until years later when, by chance, he saw a pamphlet highlighting ten contemporary impressionist painters.
Story By Sara Beck
Flipping through the pamphlet, he was impressed. One quote from an artist featured in this showbook stood out to him, expressing that being a successful artist was not the kind of thing you could achieve on a part-time schedule. He remembers thinking to himself, I’m that type. I’m just going to go for it. “It was like a door opened, and I just went in not knowing what to expect or what my chances were of making it,” he recalls. “I didn’t care—and within the first couple of years of art school, I did a number of impromptu shows in banks or wherever they could find a venue. Soon after I graduated from art school, a gallery approached me, and that’s what started my career in the mainstream art world.”
To say he’s come a long way since then would be an understatement. Beck is now a master signature member of the American Impressionist Society, the gold medal recipient of two Oil Painters of America exhibitions, and the recipient of two Raymar Art Competition Awards of Excellence. He is frequently written about in prestigious art publications and has been featured on the covers of Southwest Art and Art of the West. Recently, in 2021, he was ranked 10th amongst 5,903 award-winning artists over the previous 13-year period.
His first inspirations were the French impressionists, from Renoir to Morisot to Monet. However, this list continued to grow as he learned more about talented impressionists from Russia (Fechin), Spain (Sorolla), and Sweden (Zorn). When speaking to Beck, it is evident that he continues to nurture this reverence for the great painters who came before him. “My inspirations are still a smorgasbord of the many great artists working in this tradition who paved the way,” he says. “I follow the master painters of both the past and present.”
This sentiment is part of the reason he is looking forward to his upcoming three-man show with Jove Wang and Richard Oversmith, two fellow painters he deeply admires and respects. The show will be hosted by his gallery, Beck Fine Art Gallery, close to his downtown Wilmington, North Carolina home.
Like any artist, Beck has a tried and true routine through which he finds the inspiration and motivation to continue working. He describes it as a kind of controlled chaos—“Although I work every day, I wouldn’t say I have a particular schedule. In general, I spend a couple of hours trying to acclimate myself, meaning get my head on straight and get in the right frame of mind. I don’t just jump into painting; I have to prepare. The early part of my day is generally occupied by that - going through folders and folders of paintings that I admire, reference materials, thinking about what other artists I like are doing visually and what I’m seeing either in my references or during my morning walk. All that being said, I’m not very methodical. It’s more freeform.”
When painting, he puts his ideas into two major categories: subject and technique. The technique part of the painting—texture, edges, movement, gradation, contrast, rhythm—is a language with just as much expressive potential as the more literal subject. According to him, “people who are interested in impressionism feel that both categories combined tell a complete story,” and this story is what motivates him to keep putting brush to canvas.
Other sources of motivation exist for Beck every day. He is often moved by music, nature, and people. “Well, I don’t know if connecting with people is my motivation so much as my goal,” he thinks aloud. “Let’s just say I’m motivated by the potential to connect with people.” For him, experiencing the mystery and beauty of daily life is a large part of the work. Only after this can the more tangible work be produced, which is, in Beck’s words, “a painting with the ‘right’ ambience; one that captures the wonder and excitement of the visual world.”
Join Dan Beck, Jove Wang and Richard Oversmith at Vino & Vision, their upcoming exhibition on September 21.
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