Peter Colquhoun is a New York City based painter with fifty years of work behind him. During his student years he studied with Francis Cunningham and Lennart Anderson among others. In the 1980s he lived in Italy for three years and stayed in Venice for six months, Milan eight months and the rest of the time in Casole d'Elsa, a small village in Tuscany about half way between Florence and Siena. This was an eye opening time for him in terms of engaging with the work of the past masters as well as exploring the Italian landscape in his own paintings. In more recent years he has made painting trips to France. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe. He has received numerous awards including the Pollock-Krasner and Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Grants. Residencies have included the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos New Mexico [2001] and I-Park in East Haddam, CT [2004].
His choice of subject nearly always revolves around his surroundings. He has had a studio in Tribeca for the past 27 years and he considers both the studio and the neighborhood as an influence with regards to motif. Colquhoun paints outside during the warmer months on the city streets or in the parks or out of the city entirely. He has lived most of his life in New York City and it has been the place he has painted most often. The energy of a place and the specificity of the space or spaces to be found there can be inspiring.
The paintings Colquhoun has made cover a range of subjects. Urban and rural landscape, still-life, figure and portrait—among others but the majority of work that he has done has been with landscape. These are usually executed in oil, directly observed on site and much of the time from start to finish. Sometimes a preliminary drawing is needed, either on a separate piece of paper or on the canvas itself. He regards the process of painting as time-sensitive. The duration of work on any given piece can vary from a couple of hours to a couple of months and sometimes years. He is interested in working tonally. That is to say not merely through color as it is found squeezed from a tube but mixed and applied to the extent that it begins to approach the marvel of color as is observed in nature. More often than not, these notes are un-nameable. Choice of subject is often a complex affair. How much and in what way does that particular subject attract him and in what way can he respond in paint that has any meaning to him or anyone else? This is not always clear but if he senses that there is something that he needs to take up and if this could at least constitute a start, he will plunge in. And if he cannot get excited about what he has selected, he might as well stop right there and move on to something else or approach it in a different way.
Connect with him on Instagram - @peter_lloyd_colquhoun.
His works are available for sale on https://www.artsy.net › artist › peter-colquhoun and for sale as well as rent-to-own on https://www.curina.co. For questions regarding payment installment plans, contact mio@curina.co