Fenske to be Featured in National Portrait Gallery

[caption id="attachment_53218" align="alignnone" width="640"] Painter Ben Fenske with his portrait of “Beatrice,” which will be featured at the National Portrait Gallery in London this summer. Lucille Smithson photograph. [/caption]

The Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor announced this week that one of its featured painters, Ben Fenske, has been selected to exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in London this summer. His portrait of his muse and girlfriend “Beatrice” was selected from a pool of over 2,500 submissions to be included in the annual BP Portrait Award Exhibition.

For over 35 years, this competition has been the gathering place of the worlds most accomplished figurative painters.

“We are not surprised that the judges noticed the rich technique and deep emotions emanating from Fenske’s portrait of Bea,” said gallery owner Laura Grenning in a release issued last week.

This is Fenske’s first time to be included in the show. The exhibition is open to the public until September 4th, 2016. Mr. Fenske will open a solo show at the Grenning Gallery on August 6 with a reception from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

[caption id="attachment_53221" align="alignleft" width="300"] Vendemmia. Marc Dalessio. 8x12. oil on panel. 2016[/caption]

This weekend, the gallery will open Marc Dalessio: Rediscovers Italy on July 16 with a reception from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The show will remain on view through August 1.

This exhibition features large-scale works created in celebration of Mr. Dalessio’s return to Italy, where he studied and lived for 20 years, before embarking on world travels pursuing his passion for plein air painting and relocating to his present home in Croatia. Mr. Dalessio’s “rediscovery” is so named to acknowledge the “new eyes” from which he perceives his subject(s) and his technical ability to put that to canvas. In addition to his formal training in painting, Mr. Dalessio’s was a biology major in college and thus an almost scientific inquiry into the nature and properties of light is always present in his work.

For more information, visit grenninggallery.com.