Zullo's Inness Exhibit to Close on Sunday

The first Inness Invitational Landscape Exhibition at the Zullo Gallery on Main Street will close on Sunday, Jan. 26. 

The exhibit features local artists Dennis Sheehan and Christina Beecher.  

According to Zullo's website, the exhibit celebrates the landscape tradition exemplified by the work of George Inness, often called "The father of American landscape painting" who lived and painted in Medfield in the 19th century and whose images of this countryside remain icons of the New England landscape in art.
This inaugural Inness Invitational exhibit will feature two of the top landscape painters working today: Dennis Sheehan and Christina Beecher. For more about these artists, click HERE.

Who was George Inness? 

Landscape artist George Inness first arrived in Medfield in 1859. Coming into town he peered out the stagecoach window at the broad meadows, trees and marshlands that he would immortalize in so many of his paintings. Since studying and painting in the art centers of Europe, the then 34-year old Inness had begun to develop his own unique style which broke all the traditional rules for landscape painting.

Inness, his wife Lizzie and their five children rented the house which still stands today at 406 Main Street and the artist set up his studio in the barn behind the house. One of the paintings he did, during what Inness called the "Medfield Period" of his life from 1859-1864, was a landscape entitled "Summer, Medfield, Massachusetts."

Inness was noted for independence of thought and a willingness to cast off whatever he felt was superficial. He sketched out of doors and then painted from sketches and from memory in his studio. His work is represented in the collections of many American art museums.

Perhaps Inness' most famous work, "Peace and Plenty," painted while in Medfield, is a scene of the meadows and trees surrounding the Charles River. He moved to Eaglewood, New Jersey in 1864.

"Medfield," he said," was the peace haven, which allowed me to develop my own individual style from the ideas and inspiration of my European studies." 

The gallery is open on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.