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 has begun to market his work independently in New Orleans and South Louisiana. He is still represented by Stellers Gallery in Jacksonville, FL. 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 teaches landscape, figure, and portrait painting both privately and at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.
Sandusky delivered the keynote address at the 2017 Plein Air South conference.
To see an excellent half hour documentary about the life and work of Phil Sandusky, click this link: https://vimeo.com/354853740/bfc42b0355. This documentary film was made by Brian Sandusky, the artist’s nephew, as his thesis project for multimedia and video production. It’s 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. Brian shot many hours of footage, that includes not only what has been shown in this short film, but also miked painting demonstrations, other time lapse painting demos, and more elaborate, in-depth explanations by Sandusky about different facets of his work. Our goal is to release this additional footage in one long or multiple short clips in the near future to provide artists and art aficionados more in-depth information.
