HenryIsaacs
Buyers are raving!
This shop got multiple 5-star reviews in the past 7 days.
Announcement
Our BIRTHDAY Sale: Begins JUNE 20.
Note about Shipping
The U.S. Postal Service disruptions continue here in Vermont . We are trying to avoid charging for shipping. At no charge to our collectors thus far, our largest prints and all canvas orders have now been shifted to Fedex .
Please include a telephone contact whenever possible. There is no additional charge at present for these upgrades.
Thanks for your patience!
Refunds and Exchange Policy.
Any purchase is fully exchangeable or refundable if on receipt, the print or painting is disappointing for any reason whatsoever. The studio will fully refund all costs for return shipping and insurance fees so long as you provide tracking numbers and the print or painting is received back in good condition.
Announcement
Our BIRTHDAY Sale: Begins JUNE 20.
Note about Shipping
The U.S. Postal Service disruptions continue here in Vermont . We are trying to avoid charging for shipping. At no charge to our collectors thus far, our largest prints and all canvas orders have now been shifted to Fedex .
Please include a telephone contact whenever possible. There is no additional charge at present for these upgrades.
Thanks for your patience!
Refunds and Exchange Policy.
Any purchase is fully exchangeable or refundable if on receipt, the print or painting is disappointing for any reason whatsoever. The studio will fully refund all costs for return shipping and insurance fees so long as you provide tracking numbers and the print or painting is received back in good condition.
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Reviews
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Claire Lynn on Jun 2, 2021
5 out of 5 starsBeautiful. Arrived securely packaged and in great condition
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Sandra on Feb 22, 2021
5 out of 5 starsAbsolutely beautiful, great color saturation. Highly recommend!
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Monique on Jun 12, 2021
5 out of 5 starsThis was a wonderful experience and my sister adores the painting. Thank you so much!
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jalston01 on Jun 8, 2021
5 out of 5 starsI recently discovered this artist and immediately felt a visceral response to his work. I HAD to have this! I only wish I could afford the original. :-)
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jalston01 on Jun 8, 2021
5 out of 5 starsI visited Martha's Vineyard in 2018 for the first time... Every time I look at this print I'm reminded of the island's scenic beauty & I can't wait to go back!
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Mel on May 30, 2021
5 out of 5 starsShipping took some extra time but the artist was very communicative about it. We love our painting. Curious if it’s the view from the north side of Mt. Mansfield though or just artists interpretation?
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Robin on May 24, 2021
5 out of 5 starsThis is the third print I’ve ordered (I guess I’m a fan) and I am continuously impressed by the quality and beauty.
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mjbaum10 on May 23, 2021
5 out of 5 starsBeautiful quality print, my wife is in love with this piece. Thank you!
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About HenryIsaacs
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Vermont Studio
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Islesford, Little Cranberry Island Studio
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Inside the Studio
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A Very Big Painting, 10 feet x 12 feet
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Winter Painting
HENRY ISAACS. FINE ART, Paintings and Prints
The art of Henry Isaacs: From place to painting
By Daniel Kany
"Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems."
--Winslow Homer
Henry Isaacs’ painting, Cove, Cranberry Island, Maine, folds along a horizon line. Above is a patchwork sky that starts off butter white and beige; it then reaches into cool cerulean and misty blue gray skeins punctuated by warm pinks blossoming up into the firmament. Below is the same sky reflected in the water but rounded by a cove of verdant land and punctuated by peninsula fingers and some green trees that zigzag past the far middle ground into the quilted sky. The far shore starts solid on the left but while it grows in painted density, its colors dissolve to meld with the sky seen above and reflected below.
It is a painting primarily comprising the immaterial sky and its reflection on the water. Yet the physicality of Isaac’s dappled passages sets the seemingly simple scene dancing between areas of color, the solidity of a few bits of inaccessible land, a lusciously painted surface and a set of questions about place and painting.
These new paintings by Isaacs seem simple but they have the strength to slow your eyes on the crawling edges of the flat forms. They take you along the land but without a path and they bring your eyes and thoughts back and forth between the saturated solidity of the terra firma and the light-inspired color theatrics of excitable skies.
Isaacs’ paintings begin with a conversation between traditional landscape and high Modernism. This seems like an easy-going meeting place, especially since it so often takes place under bright skies with a soft breeze blowing in over the ocean. Isaacs welcomes viewers with his lively flickers of color popping all over the thick and chewy surfaces loaded by a hand that obviously loves to paint.
Despite their easygoing introduction, however, Isaacs’ canvases dig deep through the culture of painting and present themselves – no matter how handsome – with serious intellectual heft.
Like the Impressionists, Isaacs generally doesn’t use black. For the Impressionists, this was theoretical dedication to the idea of emulating human perception in terms of light (rather than color) and that black is the absence of light.
But Isaacs is a colorist – not a painter of atmospheric light.
While he is no Impressionist, Isaacs engages in a visual dialogue with Impressionist painting – and consequently with New England plein-air painting in general.
Reaching to art responding to Impressionism, Isaacs opens the door to Cezanne, Fauvism, Homer and the Modernist moment.
Homer might sound out of place here, but he and the Impressionists were radical – and successful – revolutionaries who led the way to major changes in painting. They discarded prevailing technique (notably glazing) and sought more direct painting.
Isaacs’ paintings are so aesthetically appealing and well-executed that they need no introduction for anyone to enjoy them, but they also converse brilliantly with the history of landscape painting relevant to New England.
There is dialogue all through Isaacs’ paintings – beginning with how they are started en plein-air and then are mostly painted in the studio. In other words, at some point Isaacs shifts from observation to following his sensibilities to make the strongest painting possible. This is a shift much like the denouement in a film: We start with background and place, then there is a major transformation and the priority switches to finding the means of resolution.
This theatrical narrative is the narrative of Modernism: It takes you from fiction to reality – in this case, from a distant place to the actual painting in front of you.
As brisk and quick as they first appear, Isaacs’ paintings are often heavily painted, layered and glazed. It’s counter-intuitive that so much paint can feel so fresh, but it makes sense when we consider the work that emerged in the wake of Impressionism, in particular Van Gogh, Matisse and Abstract Expressionism.
Shop members
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Henry Isaacs
Owner, Artist
Henry Isaacs EDUCATION Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. MFA 1982 Rhode Island School of Design. B.F.A. 1973 TEACHING Islesford Workshops, Islesford, Maine 2008-2016. Professor, Painting, Printmaking,
Production partners
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Daniel Kany
Portland, ME
Author, Art Historian, Curator, Art Critic
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