Robert Daughters

Description

The Algarve

Oil on Canvas

16 x 20

The Algarve is the southernmost coastal region in Portugal. It has spectacular beaches and a multitude of world class golf resorts which attract people from all over the globe. What was once whitewashed fishing villages have been transformed in the 1960’s into villas, hotels, bars, and restaurants. It is a vacationer’s paradise. Laro to Faro, two coastal towns, sweep along the craggy coast and cliffs.

There is a variety of past times to enjoy In Algarve. It is a popular retirement destination for Europeans, but there are still plenty of attractions. Ponte de Piedade includes the coastal town of Lagos which is magnificent. The limestone stacking and cliffs create natural caves to be explored. The water is a pure emerald green.

Praia de Falesia is a seven kilometer beach. It is one of the longest beaches in Portugal. There are stunning cliffs bordering the beach. It is also a wonderful off season walk because of the light colored sand, azure ocean and red rock cliffs. There is also a cliff-top path that offers a panorama view.

Robert Daughters, born 1929, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. For over thirty years he has celebrated the landscapes and cultures of the Southwest in his expressive* paintings. Over the years a distinctive style has emerged in his work: bold brush strokes and combined light and dark colors in compositions that are painstakingly designed and executed.

Daughters has been painting the Southwest for many years. At the New Mexico State Fair in 1972, he received the “Best of Show” Award, the Governor’s Purchase Award, and the Merit Award at the New Mexico State Fair Show, and since then has participated in one-man, group and exhibition shows throughout the United States. In 1981, he exhibited in “Collection of Art of the West” at the Beijing Exhibition Center in China. In 1995, he was chosen as one of the artists to be featured in “Covering the West – The Best of Southwest Art”, a show that featured 60 of the Southwest Art magazine’s 300 cover artists.

Daughters was also featured in Southwest Art magazine’s 30th Anniversary issue in May 2004. There have been many articles written on his work in art publications, magazines and books, and he is in Who’s Who in American Art. He was the featured artist in the 1984 New Mexico State Calendar, which reproduced thirteen of his paintings.

Rather than describe himself as an impressionist* or expressionist*, Daughters says he is a “composist,” his term for an artist who creates paintings with color harmony, the contrast of light and dark value and above all, structure. His work is created from photographs, charcoal sketches, and small plein-air* oil studies. The emphasis is on structure, an orderly arrangement of shapes, tones and atmospheric* effect.

“The composition always comes first,” Daughter says. “I like to have an important visual point; sometimes it’s a structure, and sometimes it might be a color.” For twenty years he lived in the O.E. Berninghaus home and studio in Taos. Now, much of the artist’s time is spent at his home in the Catalina foothills near Tucson, Arizona.

Written by Susan Frattini and Dee Fitzgerald

Source: Kent Whipple, Art Professional