Over the last decade, Tom Uttech has emerged as one of the most widely admired American landscape painters. After finishing a degree at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Uttech went to graduate school at the University of Cincinnati. He taught for one year at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock before accepting a position with the University of Wisconsin which he held from 1968 to 1998. One aspect that distinguishes Uttech’s paintings from most contemporary landscapes is that they are not derived from drawings, studies or photographs made on his numerous camping and canoeing trips. Instead, they are studio inventions based entirely on memory and improvisation. His depictions of North American woodlands aim to evoke a mood and his own perception rather than a realistic representation.
