Sherrie McGraw paints subtle, refined still life paintings that combine the feeling of traditional Dutch masters with the more modern sensibilities of contemporary paint handling; in which crisply defined objects shine out of their deep chiaroscuro relationships with their backgrounds.

She also paints forceful portraits and figures, in which the same relationships are heightened by even bolder brushwork.

As a young woman, McGraw studied at the Art Students League in New York with renowned American artist David Leffel. She also studied artistic anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale and Jon Zahourek at the New York Academy.

The influence of Leffel can be seen, I think, in her richly textured, painterly approach to traditional realism. At least, that’s what I would call her approach. McGraw has an interesting philosophical essay on her site about “Abstract Realism“.

McGraw travels and teaches workshops at highly regarded art institutions around the U.S., including the Portrait Society of America, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Studio Incamminati, the Art Student’s League, Academy of Art University and the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.

She is the author of The Language of Drawing (available from the publisher, Bright Light Publishing). She also edited and wrote the foreword for Galina Tulzakova’s The Drawings of Nicolai Fechin, and is at work on a new book on painting. (See her website section for Books.)

In addition to galleries of her paintings and drawings, her website also features a section on her choice of materials that includes links to suppliers and her own instructions for priming raw linen.