NEW YORK, NY.- Louis K. Meisel Gallery announced its representation of artists Davis Cone and Rod E. Penner, Photorealists whose work have made instrumental developments to the movement. Both artists have long been championed by Louis Meisel, who has included them in his books on the subject, as well as numerous museum exhibitions worldwide.
“We are delighted to welcome both Cone and Penner to the gallery. I have greatly admired and celebrated their work for many decades, and we are very pleased to be working with them both,” said Louis Meisel, founder of the gallery. “We look forward to future presentations of their new work.”
Davis Cone’s beloved paintings of theatre marquees capture an American icon from a time gone by. Always a cityscape painter, Cone honed in on his signature imagery—the marquee—early on, during the 1970s. To date, he has carefully and painstakingly painted over 100 works from locations across the United States.
Despite revolving around a singular subject matter, these paintings are wildly divergent. From rural midwestern towns to the city streets of Miami and New York, Cone’s paintings reveal the former ubiquity of Art Deco theatres across the United States. Depicted with lights and neon ablaze, Cone celebrates these theatres as landmarks juxtaposed amongst contemporary settings.
Rod E. Penner is a Texas-based artist whose cinematic paintings of rural southwestern towns quietly welcome his audience to a lifestyle often overlooked. Emerging in the nineties, Penner’s work reveals both the charm and the grittiness of small-town life. As a Canadian, he approaches the Texan landscape with fresh eyes, revealing a warmth to the desolate towns that he painstakingly captures.
Regularly working in both small and large scale, Penner’s works are highly detailed. His subjects have ranged from the main streets of tiny towns to seemingly abandoned buildings to the late 1950s ranch-style homes that once prevailed in the region. Rather than shying away from subjects that might seem banal, Penner is able to reveal an underlying beauty in the expanse of the rugged American terrain.
