7 of 93

|

This view of Pescallo, a hamlet of Bellagio, was painted high above on a hill in Bellagio on Lake Como in June.

As with many artists, I turned to art professionally after zig-zagging through a few different disciplines. For example, for a time I was a professor of political science and I wrote a couple of books on American politics. Now, however, I teach painting and write on art. My wife, Conchitina, and I run an art gallery in Bellagio (Lake Como), Italy, and organize painting holidays. My primary painting teacher was William Schultz who had studied with Robert Brackman and others whose teachers can be directly linked to the philosophy and practices of Robert Henri, John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet. I also studied briefly with Wolf Kahn, once a student of Hans Hoffman, whose work reflects both traditional and contemporary influences, a...