Phil Sandusky is a nationally renowned plein air impressionist landscape and cityscape painter who has had more than 30 solo exhibits in New Orleans and across the country. Though he is also an accomplished portrait and figure painter, he is best known for his cityscapes of New Orleans. He studied academic art privately from a very early age, and also, having an aptitude in math and science, graduated from Jacksonville University with a BA in Physics in 1980. In keeping with his dual interest in science, Sandusky has tempered his painting with an understanding of vision that goes beyond the age old dictums about optics, light, and perspective to venture into the realms explored by modern vision science. He has written four books, New Orleans en Plein Air, Painting Katrina, Jacksonville Through a Painter’s Eyes, and New Orleans Impressionist Cityscapes. He has also been the subject of, and often himself written, many articles in such national periodicals as “American Artist”, and “Plein Air Magazine.” He is also one of 276 dead and living artists entered in A Unique Slant of Light, the official bicentennial art history of Louisiana, commissioned by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Sandusky has been a New Orleans resident since 1984 and has marketed his work there since 1987. In June 2016 he amicably terminated his 22 year affiliation with the Cole Pratt Gallery and is currently represented in New Orleans by Lemieux Galleries. He also has work on consignment to Stellers Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida and the Pink Rooster Gallery in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. His works are in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum, Historic New Orleans Collection, Beaches Museum, Jacksonville Beach, FL, La Mama International Center for Creative Arts, Umbria, Italy, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA, Alexander Brest Museum, Jacksonville, FL, Hastings Foundation, New York, NY, Whitney Bank, New Orleans, LA, and Iberia Bank, New Orleans, LA.
In addition to his prolific artistic output, Sandusky privately teaches plein air landscape painting, and he makes occasional pro-bono presentations at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art where he formerly taught landscape, figure, and portrait painting for 20 years.
Sandusky delivered the keynote address at the 2017 Plein Air South conference.
You can see an excellent half hour documentary about the life and work of Phil Sandusky on the home page of this website. This film made by Brian Sandusky, is a fascinating exploration of Sandusky’s life in art through melding footage of the artist at work, painting and teaching on location with interviews of not only Sandusky, but his family, colleagues, collectors, and students.
