Philip Koch Paintings

I took the picture above in Nyack, NY last Friday of the last rays of the sun hitting the home the painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967) grew up in. I've been fortunate to visit many many times over the years and even to set up my easel and paint its interior. As luck would have it I was there on a cloudless and brilliantly sunny late afternoon- what I often call "Hopper light." So often it is the theme of loneliness or alienation people find in his paintings.  Yet to me Hopper's greatest achievement is his celebrating intense and vividly alive sunlight. To me nobody did it better.  Hopper's bedroom- the room where he was born. Two of its windows overlook the Hudson River, one block away. The home where Hopper lived on and off until he was 30 is now the  Edward Hopper House Art Center . If you're a Hopper lover, you need to go. So much of what Hopper was to become stems from his years in the house and its immediate neighborhood.  ...

An artist's job is to notice the important things that others have overlooked. To call them back to see what they've missed.  Busy with the tasks of daily living, we forget all about the drama unfolding in the skies. The painter Charles Burchfield insisted that in the changing weather and the passing of the seasons we find clues to our essential selves. The current exhibition at the  Montclair Art Museum  (MAM) in New Jersey is  Charles E. Burchfield: Weather Event  (through January 7, 2018). The show originates from the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY. but takes on special meaning in MAM's galleries. The Museum has one of the best collections of George Inness, the visionary late 19th century American landscape artist (Inness lived in Montclair the last 9 years of his life).  George Inness, Winter Moonlight (Christmas Eve), oil Montclair Art Museum Inness was renown for his uniquely moody and introspective land...

My wife Alice took this photo early this morning. I had stepped into my painting studio while waiting for the kettle to heat for my morning coffee.  My studio is a place where I spend a lot of time. A kind of sanctuary from distractions and interruptions. A place to concentrate on the dreaming and imagining that go into making one's painting happen.  This Saturday morning after an unusually stimulating couple of days the quiet of the studio felt especially inviting.  I had just had a lively conversation with Heather Gring, the Archivist at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY. Heather is helping curate the museum's upcoming show next Spring of the work I've done over the last two and a half years as their Artist in Residence. We started making choices about which of my paintings will form the core of that museum's exhibition. Heather and I will be selecting drawings by one of my favorite artists, Charles Bu...