Jimmy Longacre
Master Signature Member
Jimmy Longacre was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At an early age his family moved to San Antonio, Texas. Through grade school he filled his notebooks with drawings of Davy Crockett, Superman, cowboys, Indians, airplanes and spaceships, to share with his friends. Jimmy graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, and then earned a Master of Fine Art degree from Syracuse University. Jimmy fed his artistic interests on the masters of the Golden Age of American Illustration and the American Impressionists. In following his early passion for these he enjoyed a career as an award-winning freelance illustrator and painter for twenty-five years. He taught drawing and painting while on the faculties of The University of Texas College of Fine Art and Austin Community College. Today, Jimmy Longacre is a full-time landscape painter, and lives with his wife on a hilltop in the Texas hill country, near Dripping Springs.
It’s a thrill to paint the pictures, but it's important to me that my paintings engage you, the viewer. That's what motivates the designing of my painting. When painting outdoors I select whatever catches my attention for a study directly from nature. Back in the studio, I compose the ones that stand out to me, and that's done with you in mind. "Hey, look at this!" Besides enjoying the scene, I hope the design and color will excite your senses, that the brushwork and the look of the paint will interest you.
I enjoy painting both outdoors and in the studio. Most of my paintings begin outdoors in one way or another. That's where the interpretation begins for me. Some of my paintings are finished on site, but at this point I'm more interested in using my outdoor work as a motive to be completed in my studio. I describe what I'm doing as Subjective Realism. The idea for a painting will more or less spring from the study of facts I find to be true in the scene: the effect of light, atmosphere, color notes, value, shape relationships, notes and sketches. Those things become the resource for what I want to show you. I'm trying to help you to make closure on my interpretation of one main thing of interest to me. Although my paintings are based upon the everyday things around us, I’m not really interested in giving a literal account of ‘things’ or ‘reality’ as I find it. I enjoy using design, color and paint-handling to present a more poetic experience for the viewer. I think that it's the interpretation that makes the work, and hope you will enjoy being involved.
