JOHN MORRELL at Addison Ripley

JOHN MORRELL 
HERE & THEN

June 12 - July 17, 2010  

Opening reception: Saturday, June 12th, 5-7pm

John Morrell, Rocky Point, ©2008, oil on linen

For more than twenty years Addison/Ripley Fine Art has regularly presented work by Washington artist, John Morrell. The work in "Here and Then" presents vistas from New York, Rhode Island, Maine, Washington, DC, Canada and France in climates ranging from high summer to frigid mid-winter. The effects of light and wind, shadow and reflection are often the subjects of these paintings. Subtle tones and augmented ones play on Morrell's canvases and works on paper.  These new works are at once familiar and surprisingly fresh; they explore the lessons of the great American landscape painters and, at the same time, feel rooted firmly in the present.

The painter's very successful look at landscape icons like Niagara Falls and the Washington, DC skylines has been applauded and recognized for some time. However, it is his ability to render the familiar new and the unfamiliar enticing that marks him as a consummate master of his craft, keenly observing and carefully composing for maximum effect. Studies for many of the larger paintings are included in this exhibition, offering significant insight into the artist's process, a window into the intricate layering that is utilized in the final works.

Mr. Morrell is presently the Chair of the Art and Art History Department at Georgetown University where he has taught for many years and it is notable that his studio at the University looks out over some of the landscape that has intrigued him for much of his career. He has work in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the State Department, the United States Postal Museum and Georgetown University.

Addison/Ripley Fine Art
1670 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007 
202.338.5180 
www.addisonripleyfineart.com