Philip Koch Paintings

We recently drove down to Richmond to attend the opening of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts ' major exhibition Edward Hopper and the American Hotel . For anyone who has been moved by Hopper's work it's a must-see. Leo Mazow, the Museum's Curator of American Art told me he's been working on the show for seven years.  It paid off with loans of major pieces from museum all across the globe. Art historically Mazow points to how Hopper was one of the first to sense an important change in the country during his career- the dramatic rise in travel, tourism and hotels and motels. Prior to this show I'd never given this much thought but the exhibition makes a convincing case. Hopper was onto something new happening before most of the rest. As an artist myself who was critically inspired by Hopper's art early in my career to switch from painting abstractions to working as a realist, I'd like to approach just a few of the pieces in the show fr...

Charles Burchfield, Abandoned Farmhouse , watercolor, 1932 These two paintings, though they depart in color, have a similar theme about aging and the passage of time. It's partly expressed by the contrast of shapes in each of them. Philip Koch,  Bright Morning, oil on canvas, 36 x 54 inches, 2019 At the top is a poignant watercolor by Charles Burchfield of a long abandoned house. It was new to me when I came across it this evening. What's striking is the serious decay of the section of the house closest to the viewer. As its heavy roof sags further you can sense the movement of its eventual collapse almost as easily as the waving of the windswept grasses. Burchfield makes that so dramatic by contrasting it with the rear section of the house that still stands upright. The passing years seem eager to pull down this front section. They'll leave the back part for later. Just yesterday I completed my large canvas Bright Morning. It's a accurate ...

I ran across this photo my wife Alice took of me during one of our earlier residencies in Edward Hopper's former painting studio in Truro, MA.  In the photo it was a windy and chilly morning. I was walking slowly with my heavy easel making my way up the narrow path that Edward and Jo Hopper had made to reach the shoreline far below their studio. Hopper had been a key figure in inspiring my direction as a painter. I badly wanted to make a painting or drawing that resonated with the importance his legacy held for me. Despite that, in several attempts over my previous stays in his studio, I wasn't able to make what I felt was a significant piece. In the photo above, even with the overcast, I was feeling good as I'd finally discovered a point of view and an approach that did justice to the historic studio and its  natural setting. Sometimes you just have to wait until the conditions, both internal and external, are right. Two in--p...

Philip Koch, The Roof, oil on canvas,  20 x 14 inches, Somerville Manning Gallery , Greenville, DE Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield are two painters who have exerted enormous helpful influence on my work. Hopper wrote almost nothing about art. Burchfield filled literally thousands of pages with his observations on painting.  I guess I fall kind of in between those two.  I am shortly going to be leaving teaching my final course at MICA and moving to being a full time painter, an exciting prospect. Below is a list of ideas I'm going to be giving my art students tomorrow. They're general advice distilled down to just bullet points. Some of them may just provoke more questions. But maybe that's the idea. The 7 Secrets of Art (and a few more...) .                                      ...

Philip Koch, Penobscot Bay #1, pastel, 7 x 14 inches, 1999 Just before I went to bed last night I was looking at the above pastel for the first time in a long while. My first thought was that the drawing wasn't sure if it was about brightening sun or darkening storms. Then I decided that was its point. Way back in 1999 my feelings had been hurt when a relative had forgotten to invite me to an important family wedding. Not wanting to sit home moping  I booked a last minute flight to Maine to paint for a week in the coastline of Penobscot Bay.   The area lived up its reputation for striking natural beauty. But Maine can be notorious for rain and gloom and the art gods had decided that was being to be the menu for that week. Every day it poured.  Of course I was disappointed but I'd come prepared and was able to turn the front seat of my rental car into a makeshift studio, making a series of finished charcoal drawings of the landscape.  Later on thes...

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...

My wife Alice didn't know I was taking her picture.  She was standing last Fall on the deck just outside Edward Hopper's studio in Truro, MA. She had stepped out for a moment while I was inside lost in working on one of my paintings. Realizing she hadn't returned I looked out the door in Hopper's painting room that overlooks Cape Cod Bay. There she was standing still in a strong wind gazing off toward the horizon. Something about how the doorway framed her small figure grabbed me and I hurried to take her picture.  A few minutes later she returned and told me she had reached an important decision. Alice is a psychiatric nurse. For several decades Alice had been the Director of a Partial Hospitalization Program at  a Baltimore hospital. It was a place for people who were in the most severe emotional crisis. Over four decades she poured herself into crafting the program into something that was remarkable. It is no exaggeration is say it ...