Robert Beck (painter)

Robert Beck (born 1950) is an American painter known for his plein air and studio images of the people, occupations, and events of our time. Beck approaches a wide range of subjects in his work, often painting live under distracting and difficult circumstances. He addresses some larger topics through multiple-painting "essays", in which each image describes a facet of the subject. Beck is also a writer, teacher, curator and lecturer; he writes a monthly column for ICON magazine that parallels his painting, and is the past host of a weekly radio interview show on WDVR-FM. In 2014, he was awarded the Philadelphia Sketch Club Medal for Excellence and Contribution to the Arts.

Beck grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Beck left a career in the business world at the age of 40 to pursue painting, and subsequently attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Beck's paintings have been the subject of in-depth museum exhibitions at the James A. Michener Art Museum (Bucks County Painters, 1999) and the City of Trenton Museum at Ellarslie (Love's Notions and Novelties, 2007). His exhibition at the Maine Maritime Museum (Robert Beck: Over East, an Artist's Journal, running from 17 September 2016 to 22 January 2017) and the accompanying catalog features his essays, or 'word paintings' as well as his oil paintings which, according to Amy Lent, the Museum's executive director, have captured the soul of the life there.

His paintings have been included in invitational exhibitions at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (Second Time Around, 2014) the James A. Michener Museum (Local Mill Makes Good, 2014; Art and the River, 2008), New Hope Arts (Continuum, 2012), the Gratz Gallery (Now & Then, 2010), Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (American Artists, 2006), The Phillips Mill 75th Anniversary Retrospective (2004), and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (The Unbroken Line, 1997).

Beck’s work has been presented in 30 solo gallery exhibitions, including the National Arts Club, NY (Iconic Manhattan, 2012), the Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia (Philadelphia Heartbeat, 2011) the Morpeth Gallery, Pennington and Hopewell, NJ (1997–99), and the Gallery of Robert Beck (2000-). His paintings have been accepted into more than 50 juried exhibitions.

Beck has received 28 painting awards, was a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in 2000, and in 2014 was awarded the PSC Medal for Excellence and Contribution to the Arts by the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the oldest arts club in America.

Beck has served as the President of Artsbridge, a 400-member arts organization in the Bucks County region, and on the Board of the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Beck is known for painting in series – multiple images addressing diverse aspects of the same subject. These “visual essays” include work created while traveling the Mississippi River on a towboat pushing barges, amidst a symphony orchestra during its performances with a racing team in Europe, and traveling with surgeons in Senegal. His paintings depicting life in the Maine maritime community, Over East, are his largest body of work with a single focus; he has been likened to Winslow Homer for traditional genre painting.

Beck has been a columnist for ICON magazine since 2005. His essays address his life as an artist, describing techniques, environment, and issues involved in creating an image, but also issues that surround his subject. His essay Over There tackles his own challenges of painting in a third-world country, as well as those of the surgeons he was travelling with and the people of Senegal who were his subjects.

Twelve of Beck's ICON essays were modified to form the text of the companion piece to his exhibition at the Maine Maritime Museum, Robert Beck: Over East, a book of his painting and writing that documents life in fishing villages on the Maine coast (2016).

Beck was interviewed in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley exhibition video, Second Time Around (2014, Larry Carroll for MSV), and in the James A. Michener Museum exhibition video, Local Mill Makes Good (2014, presently being used as promotion for the Bucks County Playhouse) He is the subject of the Maine Maritime Museum video by Bob Krist for the exhibition Robert Beck: Over East (opening September 2016).

(partial list)

• Best Portrait – The 153rd Annual Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings at the Philadelphia Sketch Club, 2016
• PSC Medal for Excellence and Contribution to the Arts – Philadelphia Sketch Club, 2014
• Della Penna Award – Lambertville Historical Society Annual Juried Exhibition, 2011
• Silverman Impressionist Painting Award – Artsbridge Annual Exhibition, New Hope, 2011
• Shroeher-Clare Award – Phillips' Mill Annual Juried Exhibition, New Hope, PA, 2007
• Conti Prize Phillips' Mill Annual Juried Exhibition, New Hope, PA, 2006
• Hill Award – Lambertville Historical Society Annual Juried Exhibition, 2006
• Stewart Prize – Phillips' Mill Annual Juried Exhibition, New Hope, PA, 2005
• Award for Oil Painting – Phillips' Mill Annual Juried Exhibition, New Hope, PA, 2004
• Award for Impressionist Painting – Phillips' Mill Annual Juried Exhibition, New Hope, PA, 2003
• Best in Show – Bianco Gallery Annual Juried Exhibition, Buckingham, PA, 1995
• Bergman Prize – 1991

• Jaeger-Smith, Erica (June 2005). "Phillips' Mill : Celebrating 75 Years of Art". American Art Review.