Robert Neffson (born December 28, 1949) is an American painter known for his photorealistic street scenes of various cities around the world, museum interiors and for early still lifes and figure paintings.[1]
Neffson was born in New York City and grew up in Little Neck, New York. He was raised by a single father, after his mother, an artist, died when he was seven. He began attending classes at the Art Students League of New York in 1961, under the instruction of artists such as Lennart Anderson[2] and Edwin Dickinson.[3] As a student he copied old masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His study of, among others, the painters Jan Vermeer, Thomas Eakins, Camille Corot, and Canaletto, developed his skills further. While attending the Boston University College of Fine Arts, from which he graduated cum laude in 1971, Neffson's work attracted the attention of his professors, including James Weeks and the abstract expressionist painter, Philip Guston.
He also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, Massachusetts, both on full scholarship. Achieving his master's degree in Fine Arts for Painting in 1973, again from Boston University, Neffson taught briefly at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and Fisher College in Boston. He received the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation[4] and the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Memorial Foundation[5] Grants in support of his work.
In 1976, Neffson's life and work were significantly changed when he was awarded the Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship for Painting in Rome. During his stay in Italy, he met William Bailey[6] at the American Academy in Rome, who had a strong influence on his still life paintings at the time. Upon his return in 1977, Neffson was given a year long Artist-in-Residence Grant by the Roswell Museum and Art Center[7] in New Mexico, followed by teaching positions at Arizona State University in Tempe and Pennsylvania State University. At that time he received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Visual Artist Grant[8] in 1983. He has also taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and has continued to teach Painting from Life for many years at the Art Students League of New York.
Neffson was a member of the First Street Gallery[9] in New York from 1978 to 1985, during which time he had numerous solo exhibitions, as well as group shows with such fellow artists as Catherine Murphy. While represented from 1985 to 1998 by Gallery Henoch[10] in New York City, he was inspired by Richard Estes and Chuck Close and was among a group of second-generation Photorealist painters that were exhibiting in SoHo galleries such as O. K. Harris Works of Art[11] and Louis Meisel Gallery.[12]
In 2004, Neffson was commissioned to create a painting of the near-completed new 7 World Trade Center building, which was presented to developer Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties in a ceremony presided over by New York State Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.[13]
In 2007, Neffson authored the catalog to the British painter Clive Head's[14] exhibition at Marlborough Fine Arts, London.[15] The text consists of an introduction and letters between the two artists centered on their discussion of the creative process.[16]
Robert Neffson joined Hammer Galleries in 1998, the New York institution. He has also exhibited at London's Plus One Gallery[17] since 2005. In 2009 he was invited to join the Bernarducci.Meisel Gallery[18] in New York City. The director of the gallery, Louis K. Meisel,[12] originated the phrase Photorealism in 1968, which was first used in a Whitney Museum[19] catalog in 1970. Neffson also began exhibiting with the Albemarle Gallery[20] in London during the same year. He continues to produce works that are exhibited and collected internationally.