Save the Date! Plein Air Easton will take place July 9-17 when 58 juried artists will descend on the landscape of the Delmarva Peninsula to paint in the open air. All the completed artworks will be on display during the weekend of the 16th and 17th for viewing and purchase at The Academy Art Museum and The Waterfowl Building in Easton.

With the recent release of the 2016 competition prospectus, Plein Air Easton is proud to announce this year’s judge and jurist. 

Competition judge for 2016 - Tim Newton

An art collector for 25 years, Tim Newton has amassed a collection of some 300 works. Widely acknowledged for his discerning eye, his is a collection of great diversity which includes pieces by Richard Schmid, John Stobart, Sherrie McGraw, Don Demers, Christopher Blossom, Clyde Aspevig, Bill Acheff, Lanford Monroe, Curt Walters, Walter Matia and Quang Ho. The collection has been featured in several magazine articles.

Tim is the founder and curator of American Masters, an annual art exhibition and sale at the famed Salmagundi Club. Since its inception in 2008, the show has exhibited some of the very best in American contemporary art. Tim created and runs this annual exhibition (as a volunteer) for the benefit of the Salmagundi Club. American Masters proposed and began the fundraising for Salmagundi's gallery renovation that was completed in  2014.

He is a sought-after speaker on the subject of art and collecting.

This past November he spoke on collecting and connoisseurship at the Denver Art Museum. In May of this year he is speaking at the Oil Painters of America 25th  anniversary gathering in Dallas.

Frequently a judge of art competitions he has judged, among others,  the Oil Painters of America Virtuosos (Master and Signature Members show), the Mystic International Maritime Exhibition at Mystic Seaport, as well as Plein Air Easton in 2011.

Tim is in his third term as Chairman of the Board of the Salmagundi Club. He also serves on the Board of the Artists' Fellowship, the Board of Trustees for the Stobart Foundation and the Board of Advisors for the Clark Hulings Foundation.

Competition jurist for 2016 - West Fraser

West Fraser was born in Savannah, GA in 1955. He is a true “Son of The Low Country”, with deep roots dating back to 1695 in Dorchester SC, to coastal Georgia’s colonial plantation history. He came of age on Hilton Head Island where he developed his love of the coastal environs that still today provides inspiration. One of the leading American artists in the representational and plein air tradition, he has built his career on richly painted, atmospheric vistas of cities, coasts, and the landscape throughout the United States and internationally - from the pristine Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, to the hill towns of Tuscany. An inveterate traveler, he has painted throughout the Caribbean, Central America, Europe and Scandinavia. Yet his passion always draws him back to the marshes and landscape of his beloved Georgia and South Carolina coast.

West Fraser has been honored with eight solo museum exhibitions in the midwest, the southeast, and California. His most recent museum exhibition was at the Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA, in 2012, A Native Son: Paintings by West Fraser. His paintings have also been included in many juried museum exhibitions nationwide. During the past 35 years, Fraser has been published extensively, including features in Art and Antiques, Plein Air Magazine, The Robb Report, Charleston Magazine, Sandlapper Magazine, SC Wildlife Magazine, Southern Living, Southern Accents, American Artist, Nautical Quarterly, Southwest Art, US Air Ways, Fine Art Connoisseur and American Art Collector to name a few. In 2001, the University of South Carolina Press published the monograph Charleston in My Time: The Paintings of West Fraser, which was accompanied by a traveling exhibition to Southeastern museums. In 2016, The University of South Carolina Press published his second book, Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser which will be accompanied with a solo exhibit at the Gibbes Museum of Fine Art in Charleston, South Carolina.

For the past 11 years, Mr. Fraser has been an elected member of the prestigious Salmagundi Club, an elected Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists, a Signature member of PAPA (Plein Air Painters of America) and an artist member of the California Art Club. He was Commissioner of the South Carolina Arts Commission from 2003 – 2012. He garnered his first award in 1984, the John Young Hunter Award from Allied Artists of America in NYC.  Since then he has been honored with the Award of Excellence from Mystic International, The Mary S. Litt Award from The American Watercolor Society, the Pursuit of Excellence/American Master award from the Hubbard Museum of Art, NM and recently the Edgar Payne Gold Medal from the CA Art Club’s 100th Gold Medal Exhibition, CA. Fraser’s work hangs in permanent collections of nine museums across the United States and Bermuda and, as well, is in the permanent collection at The White House Historical Association. West Fraser lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, with his wife, Helena Fox.

“…West Fraser paints with light—the radiance of early morning, the glare of high noon, the glow of day’s end and the mystery of moonlight—to create brilliant works of color and form. He takes what we see everyday, something that seems ordinary, and makes it worthy of fine art.” –Jean Stern, Executive Director, The Irvine Museum, Irvine, CA

For more information about how to enter the competition or to plan your stay on the shore around the week’s events, please visit www.pleinaireaston.com