Ken Delmar’s Fine Art Biography

I grew up on Manhattan’s East side surrounded by art and artists. My first teacher was my mother, Alice Cochran Delmar, the landscape and floral artist. I learned about color and anatomy from my aunt, Ann Cochran, a successful professional artist.

At Middlebury College, I studied watercolor under Arthur K. D. Healy, and oil painting under Rosemary Beck. Upon my graduation in 1963, I leased a loft in New York’s SOHO and began painting full-time; large semi-abstract figures, in oils and pastel. Works from this period were in a solo show in the Greenwich Avenue Gallery, NYC, in January 1966.

After a 2-year stint in the Army, I toured European museums to study the work of the masters first-hand. I returned to the US in 1969 and took up residence with my wife and baby daughter in north Stamford, CT. I painted large figures in acrylic. Pieces from this period were exhibited in a solo show at Mary Luxemburg’s Sound Shore Gallery in Stamford, Connecticut in 1990.

After the show, I began painting representational scenes of the sea and shore, in oil and watercolor These representational seascapes had a wide showing in numerous venues, and sold well. In 2000, Jackie Caron of the Caron Gallery gave me a solo show in Chester, CT.

One evening in January, 2013, I began painting in oil on paper towels.  It’s a long story. Bottom line, the colors were vibrant and astonishing, and remained so even after drying. I began painting semi-abstract faces and figures on the paper towels, and mounting multiples of them on board, I submitted a large panel with fifteen faces to the 2013 Stamford Art Association’s annual “Faces and Figures” juried show. It won Second Prize! I knew then that what I had found organically was resonating with viewers.

My previous traditional work hangs in private homes in NYC, Fairfield County, California, and across the country, but this new style and medium have elevated my career rapidly to a new plateau. I have just had a show at the George Billis Gallery in Chelsea,  in Manhattan, which closed on September 16th.  See my website; KenDelmarArtist.com for links to several of the many video and print features generated by this show.

I am currently set for two upcoming shows, one at the Rockwell Gallery in Ridgefield, CT, opening on January 23, 2014, and one later in the year in Culver City, LA.