Ben Fenske, 1978

American painter Ben Fenske was born in Minnesota. He first studied painting and drawing in Minneapolis with Peter Bougie and Joseph Paquet and later in Italy at The Florence Academy of Art.
He is an avid portrait and landscape painter working in New York and Italy. Ben Fenske’s career and work have evolved greatly since our last catalogue in 2009. The promise of years passed has come to fruition, as fleeting sketches have become fully finished large canvases. Fenske's work has become richer, more colorful, and most importantly, the compositions have become more resolved. As you can see by the interiors, landscapes and figurative paintings, Fenske continues to be inspired by the world that he inhabits.

From an abstract lavender hued “Spring Still Life” to the elegantly reflective “Open Window”, Fenske’s paintings continue to mesmerize us. Another major development is that others are noticing and writing about his genius. In a December 2010 profile for American Artist Magazine , senior edi - tor Michael Gormley writes, "Fenske is a brash handler of the brush, and he harbors little regard for restraint. This expression of raw emotion stands out considerably from the new practitioners of this century’s realism... Fenske dares to show his hand. His mark making evidences an authentic humanness, what one sees in Homer’s art". Following a childhood of drawing and painting, Fenske briefly studied drawing with Peter Bougie and landscape painting with Joseph Paquet in Minneapolis.

His interest in painting, drawing and human anatomy led him to Florence, where he spent time studying at the Florence Academy of Art and the Russian Academy of Art. Inspired by anatomy drawing at the Russian Academy, he has recently started to sculpt in clay and marble. He has participated in exhibitions in Europe and the United States and has an annual summer solo exhibition at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor, New York. Ben Fenske, although a native of Minnesota, has become very much a fixture of Sag Harbor, as a resident for close to 5 months a year now. The balance of his time is spent in Tuscany and Maine.