Paul Calle is an
artist whose work reflects the dramatic era of America's western heritage as well as the
one in which he lives. For Calle, the dimensions of art can be as vast as the wild,
windswept plains of the West, as infinite as outer space and as small as the historic
scenes he captures on postage stamps.
His portrayal of the West is not as a romantic adventure but as a
realistic challenge. Calle has made a personal commitment to portray America's past with
the same sense of history that guided his hand in depicting our nation's space
explorations as an artist for NASA’s Fine Art Program.
Calle is a master of both the oil painting and the pencil drawing. His drawings - often
very large - show incredible control and sensitivity; they have the quality of fine
etchings. Few contemporary artists have attained greater mastery of the pencil than Calle.
Calle's oil paintings, finely detailed panoramic landscapes of the majestic West, often
take several years to complete. His work has been the subject of two books: The Pencil and
Paul Calle - An Artist's Journey, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Fine Arts.
In addition to major corporate and private collections, Calle's artwork is in the
permanent collections of numerous prestigious institutions including The National
Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, D.C., The National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, D.C., The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and
the U.S. Department of the Interior. His drawings and paintings have been widely exhibited
in the United States as well as in the Soviet Union, Sweden and Poland.
Calle says, "If I had to state a goal, a hope pertaining to my work, my aim would be
to help keep alive that huge reservoir of our past, to draw strength and sustenance from
it and build upon it in ways that are new and different, but not to reject it." |
