In the late 1960's a number of factors favored the emergence of a new generation of American Realist landscape painters – those that worked from direct observation and those that employed photography as a direct reference. Photo Realism which employed photography was also being promoted in New York. Most of this artwork took people, machines and the urban environment as its subject, but a new group was emerging - painters whose subject was the land itself.

These painters working from direct observation, rejected most of the notable American landscape traditions; the Transcendentalism of Church, Bierstadt and Moran, the Romanticism of Inness and the Tonalists, and the Mythologies of Manifest Destiny - the Cowboys Indians and Cavalry of Remington and Russell; instead they went back to look at the land itself. The new landscape painters of Holbrook's generation were informed by Modern Art but trying to overcome its dead ends, trendiness, and above all its rejection of nature as the source of understanding and inspiration.

There was in fact a general revolution in consciousness afoot in the late 60's. Rachel Carson (Silent Spring) had initiated the Ecology movement. The Sierra Club was winning the early battles to preserve the wilderness and recognize its spiritual values. Modern geology, with its new dating techniques and discovery of plate tectonics gave us a new mental picture of the age and formation of the land. The Park System was rapidly expanding under the demand for the wilderness experience. Stuart Brand with his Whole Earth Catalog was educating a new generation of homesteaders. And NASA was showing us what our planet looked like from space – beautiful but somehow fragile. That was the world view and mind set that brought Holbrook to Northern California in 1970. This exhibition, though far from comprehensive, is the result of that decision 40 years ago.

Holbrook writes:

"I have painted all over the country; from Maine to the West Coast, from Vancouver Island to Hawaii and Costa Rica, but my work is usually associated with a subset of painters exploring the canyon lands of the Southwest. I continue to work from photographs I shoot principally in the National Parks. Images from Zion, Monument Valley, Bryce and the California coast are represented here. If these icons of the Park System are not immediately recognizable it is because I worked through the most popular views and "vistas" years ago. Now I concentrate more closely on the details in an effort to continually find a fresh point of view. The work is ever-evolving technically as well as visually. If today landscape is the most widely practiced form of Realism it is a testament to the change in consciousness that my generation of painters has wrought.

I have forever admired the great Realists. There is a basic visual magic in the ability of pigments to credibly translate our 3-dimensional world to the flat 2- dimensional world of paper and canvas. A good painting allows us to momentarily enter another's consciousness, and implies dimensions beyond what we can normally see. Painting is therefore a spiritual exercise, requiring imagination to create credibility. Beyond that, the power of this translation depends on the subject and the particular point of view (physical and psychological) of the painter.

With the intent to share my pleasures, I have concentrated on the things of the world I most enjoy looking at. These usually exhibit forms that are the product of a life force being acted upon by a set of natural laws (gravity, decay, erosion) over their given life span. These are the most beautiful forms I know, and by repeated examination, the most meaningful."

Holbrook has exhibited widely, with 53 solo exhibitions throughout the United States. From1968 to 1970 he taught at the University of Illinois (Chicago Circle Campus) and 1970 -71 at Cal State - Hayward. His work is part of many permanent collections, corporate, private, and Federal. These include the Art Institute of Chicago, The Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C, the Brooklyn Museum, The Tucson Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of Art.

Contact: peterholbrook.com