Fred Wessel is a Professor of Printmaking at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, where he teaches drawing, tempera painting and lithography. He also leads workshops in Italy to paint and study the Italian Renaissance.
He particularly looks to the early Renaissance for inspiration, saying "The ever-changing inner light that radiates from gold leaf used judiciously on the surface of a painting, and the use of pockets of rich, intense colors that illuminate the picture's surface impressed me deeply".