Originally from Pasadena, California, Douglas Atwill moved to Texas as a teenager, after attending University he lived in Austin to become an art director for an ad agency. Atwill’s career as a fine artist really began in 1969 when he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where over the years he exhibited his work at Blair Gallery, Gerald Peters Gallery, Meyer East, and Munson Gallery. Prominent major collections such as the New Mexico Museum of Art and Merrill Lynch feature his work.
The acrylic paintings Atwill creates on linen capture a range of subjects: towering mesas of New Mexico, sprawling Italian cityscapes, and most famously, bright midday scenes from his own gardens. Focusing the beauty found in everyday natural environments, Atwill creates artwork that evokes the personal within the world around him. Landscapes and still life paintings equitably portray the vibrance in Atwill’s vision, creating a passionate visual experience for the viewer. Douglas’s work highlights the various layers found in nature and his quick brushstrokes create a sense of movement.
Not defined by success in painting, Atwill also gained prominence in Santa Fe as a designer, writer, and builder. Atwill’s writing includes memoirs, short stories, novels, and poetry – much of which can be found in his published books of his paintings.
Douglas Atwill
Artist Process
Atwill’s work takes on the unabashed decorative intentions of artists like Matisse and the Fauves; his new works have the effect of elegantly printed textiles or embroideries, somewhat like the elegant and airy paintings of Raoul Dufy, in fact. That “little master” of Fauvism cultivated a vision of joie de vivre that relied upon sprightly inventions of pattern-on-pattern; it is this same rollicking pattern–on-pattern in Atwill’s work which gives his gardens their textural appeal – brushstrokes here often look like silken threads, or patches of satin appliqued to the surface. Certain, the richness of Atwill’s images has more to do with the “artfulness” of art than with the actual experience of a summer garden. We are forced finally to recognize that these seemingly casual landscapes are anything but “careless-ordered.”
"As the paintings pile up against the wall at the end of the year, I often wonder what will happen with all of them. I shall sell some of them, contribute some to good causes, and give some to friends and neighbors. But it really does not matter, because they give me my happy hours at the easel." Douglass Atwill
Snow on the Sangre de Cristos
Rooms + SuitesReproduction Prints
Materials: Reproduction prints | Handmade frames by Chester Frames using FSC woods from the North East of the United States.
Winter on the Big Tesuque
Rooms + SuitesReproduction Prints
Materials: Reproduction prints | Handmade frames by Chester Frames using FSC woods from the North East of the United States.
Sangre de Cristo Cascades
Rooms + SuitesReproduction Prints
This painting highlights the importance of snowpack, Spring snow melt, and how it nourishes the surrounding ecosystems.
Materials: Reproduction prints | Handmade frames by Chester Frames using FSC woods from the North East of the United States.
Rain Clouds Over Algodones
Rooms + SuitesReproduction Prints
This piece highlights the dramatic western sky and how quickly a storm can take shape dumping a massive amount of water into a valley and what can lead to an extraordinary desert bloom in early Spring.
Reproduction prints | Handmade frames by Chester Frames using FSC woods from the North East of the United States.
More From Douglas Atwill
Douglas Atwill is a prolific acrylic painter, capturing a range of subjects from the towering mesas of New Mexico to dense Colorado forests, and most famously, bright midday scenes from his own gardens. His work highlights the constant movement of light, water, and wind, and evokes the personal connection to the vibrant natural world around him. Explore Douglas beyond Populus.
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