Robert neffson biography

Robert Neffson (born December 28, 1949) is an American painter known for his photorealistic street scenes of various cities around the world.
Robert Neffson is an American painter known for his photorealistic street scenes of various cities around the world, museum interiors and for early still lifes and figure paintings.
Artist Snapshot: Robert Neffson.

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RESUME

EDUCATION

1973 Boston University, Fine Arts, MFA Painting Studied with Philip Guston, James Weeks, and Sigmund Abeles

1971 Boston University, School of Fine Arts, BFA Cum Laude

1970 Tanglewood Institute, Lenox, Massachusetts (full scholarship)

1969 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (full scholarship)

1964-67 The Art Students League of New York with Lennart Anderson and others

SELECTED GRANTS

1984 Pennsylvania State University Research Grant

1983 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Visual Artist Grant

1977-78 Artist-in-Residence Grant, Roswell Museum & Art Center, New Mexico

1976-77 Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship (Painting), Rome, Italy

1976 Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation Grant

1975-76 Elizabeth T. Greenshields Memorial Foundation Grants, Canada

1971-73 Boston University Graduate Teaching Fellowship

1969 Boston University, Julius Rosen Scholarship.

1969 Full Scholarship and Wilfred P. Cohen Foundation Award, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine.

1966 Art Students League, New York. Nessa Cohen Award.

SELECTED EXH

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Robert Neffson is an American painter known for his photorealistic street scenes of various cities around the world, museum interiors and for early still lifes and figure paintings.

Neffson was a member of the First Street Gallery in New York from 1978 to 1985, during which time he had numerous solo exhibitions, as well as group shows with such fellow artists as Catherine Murphy.

While represented from 1985 to 1998 by Gallery Henoch in New York City, he was inspired by Richard Estes and Chuck Close and was among a group of second-generation Photorealist painters that were exhibiting in SoHo galleries such as O. K. Harris Works of Art and Louis Meisel Gallery.

In 2004, Neffson was commissioned to create a painting of the near-completed new 7 World Trade Center building, which was presented to developer Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties in a ceremony presided over by New York State Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In 2007, Neffson authored the catalog to the British painter Clive Head's exhibition at Marlborough Fine Arts, Londo
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Artist Snapshot: Robert Neffson
At what age did you decide to become an artist?
At age twelve I asked to go to the Saturday classes for children at the Art Students League. I kept going on weekends during school and in the summer. In high school I was involved in literature, science, and math, but painting was always my strongest interest. At the League I took classes in figure drawing, anatomy, and painting, so by the time I got to Boston University for my BFA, I was ahead of the game. In a nice symmetry and because I still think it’s one of the most important art schools in the US, I taught painting from life at the League from 1996 to 2010 .
How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to be an artist?
They were very encouraging to me. My mom had studied painting at the League. Her father had been a cinematographer, and her brother, an architect, so she was thrilled that I was interested in painting. When I started teaching at universities and became a Fulbright scholar in Rome, they were very happy. After a painting of mine was put in one of the Leagu