Quiet Times, Quiet Places:
Landscapes in Oil by Lloyd Nick

September 26 through October 31, 1999

This very special exhibition featured the landscape paintings of Oglethorpe University Museum Director Lloyd Nick. The following is extracted from the Artist's Statement:

For more than thirty years now, I have painted mountains, usually viewed from a distance....I became more involved with the sky in its relationship with the mountains after a painting trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I am very attracted to the drama and the subtleties of the mountains and their relationship with the clouds above them. This is particularly moving at the end of the day – at sunset....I have tried to paint these natural dramas. The subtleties hiding in these majestic forms and patterns are equally meaningful and necessary to the vision, because they define the sensation of the specific moments. They are the result of limited and constantly changing light on sensual forms of two opposites – the etherial clouds and the eternal mountains.

It is, however, the color of these events in nature that brings out the emotional response that excites me. The noontime light is too overpowering, too blaring. It is the late afternoon and the early evening light that produce the poetry in the vision of these images in nature for me. This is the seed of my vision and the crux of my painting.

About Lloyd Nick

Born in Rochester, New York, Lloyd Nick received his liberal arts and fine arts training at Hunter College of the City University of New York (Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting) and the University of Pennsylvania (Masters of Fine Arts in painting). Besides attending all institutions on full scholarships, he gained special national awards which enabled him to expand his studies in painting at two major summer art programs: Yale Norfolk Summer School, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He studied with Tony Smith while at Hunter College, and Neil Welliver while at the University of Pennsylvania.

During the 1970's he received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to research the creative aspects of Claude Monet's landscape painting in New York, Chicago and Giverny, France. Also in the 1970's he painted and exhibited regularly in Europe, and represented the United States in an international painting seminar in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia. In Bulgaria he was the first American to have a one-man exhibition since World War II.

Lloyd Nick's mediums include painting, drawing and stone lithography. Over a twenty year period he has developed a horizontal landscape format which draws from both eastern and western historical-philosophical concepts and proportions, including use of the "golden section." His subject matter has always been realistic or figurative, as he has been a strong proponent of the theory that an artist must work directly from nature to learn and develop. Using these ideas, his work has been almost entirely devoted to landscape images in all mediums. His approach is also centered in the belief that the intuitive or spiritual must be present in art. He has numerous works in international, private and corporate collections, including those of Princess Grace of Monaco, British pianist Moura Lympany, AT&T, Barclays Bank, NCNB, Burlington Industries, Duke University Medical Center, East West Foundation, and many others.

Since 1984, Nick has served as a professor of art and Director of Art Programs at Oglethorpe University, where he is also Founder and Director of Oglethorpe University Museum. Prior to coming to Oglethorpe, he developed and chaired art departments in several other institutions, including Methodist College, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and American College of Monaco, where he was also Dean of Students. As Oglethorpe University Museum Director, he has initiated a number of important original exhibitions including:

The Mystical Arts of Tibet Featuring Personal Sacred Objects of the Dalai Lama

The Family Photographs of Claude Monet

The Grand Tour: Landscape and Veduta Paintings, Venice and Rome in the 18th Century

Four from Madrid: Contemporary Spanish Realism

The Spirit and the Flesh: Contemporary American Realism

Hermann Hesse: Novelist, Poet, Painter

The Three Ages of Man by Giorgione
(special exhibition with complete documentation)

As a result of these and other exhibitions, the museum has gained wide recognition and has drawn extensive national and international press coverage.

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