Philip Koch Paintings

Edward Hopper, Mrs. Scott's House, oil on canvas, 34 1/4 x 50 1/8 inches, 1932, Maier  Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA I don't usually start a painting with another artist's painting in mind. My new canvas below however owes a big debt to Hopper's oil Mrs. Scott's House  that's in the collection of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA. Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine first stayed on Cape Cod in the summer of 1930. For the next several summers they explored the land out near the very end of Cape Cod's peninsula.  Famously private, I suspect he liked how few people there were in the remote town of Truro.  One striking painting that resulted from this searching was Mrs. Scott's House  seen above.  Hopper was always drawn to paint big, solid volumes illuminated by brilliant sunlight. He must have loved the stark contrast of the massive and nearly bare dunes against the small but stubbornly u...

Philip Koch, Edward Hopper's Parlor, oil on canvas 32 x 24 inches, 2019 Where to great ideas come from for artists? There are all sorts of answers advanced to that question. When we artists are at our best our hands seem to be guided by a part of ourselves that is just beyond our awareness. I'm convinced great art reaches deep into an artist's psyche to borrow images that have been echoing there since their childhood.  This was driven home to me when an old friend of mine from my boyhood town of Webster, NY came to visit me. Seeing an array of my paintings in my studio he exclaimed "Phil, this is our old neighborhood." Actually I'd never painted in my old hometown. The paintings he was looking at ranged from scenes I'd painted not in Webster, NY but in far flung locales all over the country. Others were fanciful imaginary landscapes. Going around the room he named places we played as young children that these paintings echoed.  Ab...

Philip Koch, Bright October Sun , oil on canvas,  36 x 54 inches, 2019 All of us have places that somehow seem to have grabbed a hold of us. One of mine is the area near the mouth of the little Pamet River in Truro on Cape Cod. The above just completed painting based on this place has a long  history. It stems from 1983 during my very first residency in Edward Hopper's studio (that lies just beyond the dark far hill in the painting). Here's the smaller oil I worked from- Philip Koch, Bright October Sun, oil on panel, 14 x 21  inches, 2019 I had begun this smaller oil on the fall 1983 trip to the Hopper studio. Shortly after arriving I explored the mouth of the Pamet and set up my French easel there in front of my favorite view. This is what came back home to my studio from that trip. Philip Koch, Pamet River, South Truro, oil on panel, 14 x 21 inches, 1983 While happy with the painting I came to feel the one huge ...