Winston Churchill called Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue “the grandest boulevard in America.” In the 1850s the city began to fill in a bay of the Charles River to create a new neighborhood called Back Bay. Arthur Gilman designed the grand boulevard starting at the Public Garden and, in effect, continuing the garden into the developing city. The central allée of trees and roadway is about 200 feet wide and buildings are a required 20 feet back from the lot line creating the distinctive, tiny front gardens. In the 1960s an enterprising resident convinced her neighbors to plant magnolia trees in their gardens to offset the neglect that had begun to set in.
Today, the elegant townhouses comprise a combination of private residences, student housing and offices. The grand elm allée succumbed to Dutch elm disease but has been replanted with a mixture of trees. 
Principle Gallery, Flat Iron, oil on panel, 23 x 16", by Valerio D’Ospina
Joel Babb was born in Georgia, raised in Nebraska, graduated from Princeton and attended and later taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He now lives and works in rural Maine. Whether painting the always-changing character of water running over rocks in the woods or the solid geometries of the city, he is acutely aware of the effects of light.
He says, “Painting Boston’s cityscapes, I suppose, is a little bit like Sargent painting Venice—it is a subject richly suggestive of the past, with an elevated aesthetic. I don’t wish to paint in Sargent’s style, though it would be wonderful to be able to, but Boston really is a great subject for thinking about the relation of the past to the present.”
Left to right: Rehs Contemporary, Empire State Blue, oil on panel, 39 x 23½", by Mark Laguë; Thomas W. Schaller, Afternoon Light – Palermo, watercolor on paper, 30 x 22"
The architecture endures On Commonwealth Ave. with adaptations to time. Air conditioners jut out of windows, a man talks on a mobile phone, and cars replace horse-drawn carriages. Past and present are joined together.
Another Bostonian, Ben Aronson, portrays another great city in his painting Chicago River. Aronson captures past and present as well, the natural river now flowing in a constructed channel, the sunlit, 1924 Wrigley Building standing next to the Michigan Avenue bridge and contrasting with the nearby 1965 Equitable Building.
“Light is at the center of it for me,” he says. “It’s unique to every place.” He notes the light “bounced into all the shadows” in California and the “inky black” shadows of New York City. In Chicago River, the low sun pours down the built canyons to reflect off the Wrigley Building and be absorbed by the Equitable while its shadows obscure the facades of the buildings along East Wacker Drive.
Valerio D’Ospina approaches New York’s iconic Flatiron Building from street level, looking up and capturing the distortions of perspective. The building itself is a triangular block designed by Daniel Burnham and completed in 1902. By 1904, it was immortalized by photographer Edward Steichen and has lured artists ever since. 
Gregg Kreutz, Booksellers on the Seine, oil on panel, 16 x 29"
D’Ospina was born in Italy, studied the masters and worked for an antique painting restoration company. He now lives in the U.S. Despite his knowledge of the masters, the influence of more contemporary masters of abstract realism—Alberto Giacometti, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon—is obvious in his work. The physical qualities of paint, spontaneous drips, dribbles and scratches, animate the paintings, capturing the dynamic energy of the city.
The images of cityscapes and architecture featured in this special section are beautiful views from around the world, some showing the largest metropolises and others are quainter intimate scenes. They offer an escape from the day-to-day of our surroundings and are reminders of some of the most dynamic places.
Clockwise from top left: Rehs Contemporary, The Great Bridge in Water, oil on panel, 18 x 24", by Mark Daly; Emile Dillon, Brooklyn Diner, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40"; Rehs Contemporary, Flags Along the Avenue at 52nd Street, oil on panel, 24 x 18", by Mark Daly; Rehs Contemporary, Through the Tower, oil on panel, 24 x 30", by Mark Laguë
Rehs Contemporary in New York City represents some of the finest cityscape artists working today, including Mark Laguë and Mark Daly. Both artists capture New York in all of its moods and from a variety of different angles, as well as some of the other major cities around the world. Laguë’s pieces will take viewers to London and Paris, as well as to the iconic Empire State Building, all in a modern style with fragmented and luscious brushstrokes. Daly’s artwork is more impressionistic and has a classic color palette that evokes the atmosphere of the places he paints.
Artist Thomas W. Schaller’s watercolors are a study in contrasts, such as light and dark, man-made and atmospheric, reality and imagination, and the past, present and future. He explains, “It is my job as an artist to allow my subjects to speak—to augment a silent communion between artwork and viewer.”
Left to right: Thomas W. Schaller, Close To Home – Venice, CA, watercolor on paper, 22 x 15"; Cecilia Villanueva, Transportable Cities: Museo del Estanquillo, oil on canvas, 54 x 31"
Cecilia Villanueva’s paintings are not only about architecture and light but also about understanding that time does not exist. The artist explains, “That which we call ‘time’ is actually change coming from inside; just a measure of the perpetual change within all.” Her blue paintings weave a story of an impossible moment and the result of this over-concentrated attention in such a small span of time, reveals without doubt the core of the artist.
“Cities are alive, and constantly changing,” says Villanueva. “Within every minute of being in a specific city, I find a different city; I just need to close and open my eyes to see the light shifting as well as the faces, the smells and the sounds.”
Gregg Kreutz, Puppet Show in Monte Carlo, oil on panel, 20 x 16"
Emile Dillon, who is represented by Skidmore Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Monica, California, is inspired to paint cityscapes of things he knows will be gone in a few years. “There were, in the city I grew up in, about three or four movie theaters, most within walking distance from my house. The closest one now is several miles away in a shopping mall,” he explains. “There are also iconic signs, diners, restaurants and stores that no longer exist. I have spent years documenting the vanishing urban landscapes and painting them. Old movie theaters are now parking lots, diners and stores gone. Hopefully my paintings will bring back memories to people and introduce to others these things from the past.”
Rehs Contemporary, London Red, oil on panel, 36 x 30", by Mark Laguë
Vose Galleries, On Commonwealth Ave., oil on linen, 18 x 45¼", by Joel Babb
When travel was easier, Gregg Kreutz always tried to hit the road with sketchbooks, paint and a portable easel, which allowed him to set up at beautiful locations and depict the setting. His painting Sketching in Venice started on location, but took a year longer “to figure out how to capture that moment when the sun blasted against that canal building,” he says. “I added the figures at the last minute thinking they provided a nice counterbalance to the brilliant light across the canal.” Two of his paintings, Puppet Show in Monte Carlo and Booksellers on the Seine, started as pencil sketches before developing into their final compositions.
“People ask me sometimes: Why not just take a photograph? Answer: Even though photographs are more ‘accurate,’ I find that a sketch done on site better communicates how I feel about the scene at that moment,” Kreutz says. “Aiming your iPhone at something and clicking is a very different experience from peering and squinting and studying something to find out what’s really going on.”
LewAllen Galleries, Chicago River, oil on panel, 38 x 52½", by Ben Aronson.
Vladislav Yeliseyev, Havana Arches, watercolor, 14 x 10"
Artist Vladislav Yeliseyev is inspired by capturing the mood and telling the story of the scene based on its subtle nuances.“I try to achieve it through tonal balance and color integrity of the painting at the same time preserving transparency and vibrancy of watercolor medium,” he says. “The wayI see it, it is the path chosen for my development as an artist. As I was born and raised in the city, urban landscapes, especially, play large part in my paintings. With its complex and vibrant atmosphere, they hold vast amount of venues to explore.”
Clockwise form top left: JakeJoy Mulyk, Stampede of Memories, mixed media with ink, collage and resin, 18 x 24"; Vladislav Yeliseyev, Louvre after the Rain, watercolor, 20½ x 14"; Gregg Kreutz, Sketching in Venice, oil on panel, 16 x 20"Yeliseyev’s Havana Arches was painted on a trip to Cuba with a group of students. Impressed by the inner beauty of the city, Yeliseyev is bringing to the viewer his reflection on the gracefully aging, stunning architecture and showing us the connection between the past and the future. Same can be said about Louvre after the Rain, which he painted after a trip to Paris and where the artist takes a very selective approach to focus not at the eye level but at the part of elaborate architectural detail at the top of the structure.
JakeJoy Mulyk is captivated by “the vibrant energy that exists in the unique space and culture of the inner city. Here, diverse elements of nature and man are magnified into an intense symphony of colour, texture, light and form. Senses of sound and smell are merged, and the eye and mind is provoked.” Among her original pieces is the mixed media work Stampede of Memories, which was done in ink, collage and resin. —
Featured Artists & Galleries
Cecilia Villanueva
Houston, TX, (713) 231-3669
ceciliavillanueva16@gmail.com
www.ceciliavillanueva.com
Emile Dillon
Represented by Skidmore Contemporary Art Gallery
2525 Michigan Avenue, #B-4
Santa Monica, CA 90404, (310) 828-5070
www.skidmorecontemporaryart.com
Gregg Kreutz
greggkreutz@gmail.com
www.greggkreutz.com
JakeJoy Mulyk
jakejoyartist@gmail.com
www.jakejoyartist.com
LewAllen Galleries
1613 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 988-3250
www.lewallengalleries.com
Principle Gallery
208 King Street, Alexandria, VA 2314
(703) 739-9326
www.principlegallery.com
Rehs Contemporary
5 E. 57th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10022, (212) 355-5710
www.rehs.com
Thomas W. Schaller
www.thomaswschaller.com
Vladislav Yeliseyev
(941) 330-6865, info@yeliseyev.com
www.yeliseyevfineart.com
Vose Galleries
238 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116
(617) 536-6176, www.vosegalleries.com
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