It takes guts to be a realist painter. It takes guts to paint the human figure with delicacy and subtlety. It takes guts to convey sensitive emotions, personality, feelings with power and refinement. But only then can painters speak the truth. The realist painting must be nothing less than a meditation on the nature of being and the individual.  It must create likeness with the power to kindle the observer’s imagination and awaken memories. In the words of Baudelaire, a good portrait must be a “dramatized biography.” – Nelson Shanks

Nelson Shanks was born in Rochester, New York in 1937 and studied at the University of Kansas, the Kansas City Art Institute, the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League in New York, and privately with John Koch and Henry Hensche.  Nelson continued his education at the Accademia delle Belle Arti and with Pietro Annigoni in Florence. While in Europe, he traveled extensively to study the works of Renaissance and Baroque masters.

His European education completed, Nelson taught in top art institutions in the United States, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 2002, he founded Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an atelier devoted to painting. For Nelson, nothing could be more vital or relevant to the future of civilization than creating art that people can relate to their visual and emotional experience.

An exhibition of Mr. Shanks’ portraits will be presented at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg and the Russian Academy of Art, Moscow starting in May 2011. It will include portraits of H.R.H. Lady Diana, President William J. Clinton, and the last portrait of Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich painted before his death.