Thomas Kegler is a painter from Western New York State.

Largely self-taught, Kegler was drawn to the traditional techniques of realist painting, and in particular the approach of the Hudson River School and their reverence for the beauty of the natural world.

Kegler also follows the study-to-studio approach of the second generation Hudson River painters, who would work from life in small plein air sketches to collect all of the visual information necessary for their larger studio works.

Kegler is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson River Fellowship, an aptly named subset of the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York City, which grew out of Jacob Collins‘ Water Street Atelier. Kegler conducts workshops through the school, and I think also independently.

Kegler’s contemplative landscapes and still life subjects invite extended viewing. With muted palettes and subtle value transitions he evokes a sense of place, time and atmosphere in his landscapes and a textural presence in his still life subjects.

I particularly enjoy his landscape compositions in which he focuses on the small, intimate details of the forest floor; in a way, exploring landscape at the scale of still life.

The galleries on his website also include figurative subjects, notably portraits and portrait studies, as well as a selection of drawings. Several of these are tonal studies for paintings that are marked out with notes in much the way many 19th century artists annotated their location studies with information for later studio works.

Kegler’s site also includes a section on process, with videos and PDF files of information on the painting process, as well as a section of resources with much the same aim.

In addition to several short instructional videos, Kegler has released an instructional DVD which is based on the completion of a landscape painting. He has provided me with a review copy, which will be the topic of a separate post.

In addition to his website, Kegler also maintains a blog, in which you will find additional work, as well as notes on process and workshops. You can also find mentions of Kegler on the Grand Central Academy blog.

[Addendum: The Artist’s Network has published a small online gallery of Kegler’s work.]