"Suguaro" Contemporary Desert Lanscape Oil Painting by Gregory Hull, Framed

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Photo of Gregory Stewart Hull
A plein-air impressionist painter from Sedona, Arizona, Gregory Hull's goal is to work outdoors and … Read more Photo of Gregory Stewart Hull
A plein-air impressionist painter from Sedona, Arizona, Gregory Hull's goal is to work outdoors and to stop working while the brushstrokes are still loose and energetic. He infuses his canvases with bright sunlight and conveys emotion through gestural brushstrokes. He also does portrait and figure painting including nudes, but his studio work is more polished and refined in appearance than his landscapes.

He studied with classically trained English portrait painter Alvin Gittins and earned an M.F.A. Degree in fine arts from the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. He also traveled extensively in Europe, studying the Old Masters, including a year in Spain when he became interested in plein-air painting. This interest was reinforced when he moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s. From there, he traveled extensively in his camper for subject matter and does the same from his studio in Sedona. He is most captivated by patterns of light and shadow.

Gregory Hull was born in Oklahoma, raised in Utah, and in recent years makes his home in Arizona. Showing a keen interest in drawing since youth, he was encouraged in high school by a teacher and exposed to a variety of media. After studying general education courses at the University of Utah, he met Alvin Gittins, a portraitist, who was to become an important teacher/mentor. The next five years were spent studying with Gittins, who exposed an academic approach to art involving drawing and painting from life and the study of human anatomy.

At the same time, Hull took an interest in the study of plein-air painting in situ, a practice that he has continued to the present day. Hull used realism as a way to express his feelings. All his paintings have a common thread: the study of light, be it an apple on a tablecloth or a tree casting a shadow. "Light", says the artist, "is what gives the form dimension and what makes it appear to turn in space. The painter is limited to a two-dimensional canvas and an array of colors on the palette. To achieve an illusion of form and space on this canvas is the art". Hull notes that the values outdoors are much lighter because of the intensity of the light, while in the studio, dark values are achieved in his still life and figure work.

What attracts Hull to landscapes are the forms and patterns suggested by nature. While a still life may have a more controlled and formal composition, nature's beauty is geology, atmosphere, and the rapid changes of light. Gregory Hull also has done numerous portrait commissions where he demonstrates a keen insight into the subject's personality. As with the trained artist of the past, Hull's career has demonstrated great versatility, and variety of subject matter, which is vividly displayed in his remarkable work. See less