Kent Lovelace

Nationally recognized Pacific Northwest artist Kent Lovelace (1953 – 2017) created masterful oil paintings, lithographs and watercolors during his life long career. Beginning in 2001, Lovelace primarily painted with oils on copper plates, a tradition uncommon among contemporary artists, but dating back to the early Renaissance. The reflective quality of the copper enhances the inherent luminosity of oil paint and it provides a rosy warmth or under-painting upon which the artist layered oil pigments to create subtle shifts of color and various atmospheric effects. Alternating between pure landscapes and bird subjects, Lovelace created works inspired by France, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, as well as the Northwest. He wrote, “I find myself drawn to land that has been cultivated continuously for thousands of year, where people seem to live in harmony with nature away from the intrusions of modern technologies.”

Lovelace began training at the University of Colorado, where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1976. During an apprenticeship at Landfall Press in Chicago, he worked with such artists as Christo, William Wiley and Claes Oldenburg. In 1979, he earned his Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking at the University of Washington under the direction of Jacob Lawrence and Glen Alps. That same year he founded Stone Press Editions in Seattle where as Master Printer he was doing lithography for printmakers from North American, Japan and Europe including Italo Scanga, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Bateman, Dale Chihuly, Paul Horiuchi, and Russell Chatham among others. The Smithsonian, NAACP, Seattle Art Museum, Mill Pond Press, Pilchuck Glass are some of the organizations that have commissioned work.

Lovelace’s prints and paintings have been widely collected. Some of the over one hundred private and public institutions in which his works may be found include Safeco, King County Arts Commission, United Airlines, Swedish and Providence Hospitals, Boeing, AT&T, Nordstrom, and Preston Thorgrimson Ellis & Holman. Lovelace was a sought after guest lecturer and teacher at numerous museums and universities throughout the Northwest.