Peter Arguimbau
“Ifeel that I was born to paint light,” says artist Peter Arguimbau, who in 1958 started an apprenticeship with his father by grinding fresh color from powdered pigments as he painted portrait commissions. He won Best in Show at the Darien Art Show and the Huntington Award at the Hudson Valley Art Association in White Plains, New York. At 16, Arguimbau began studying Reuben’s technique with Frank Mason for 14 years at the Art Students League.
“He showed me how to paint the light effect in all forms of motifs. For the last 40 years while working with Flemish technique, I have been calibrating and mastering these drying oils with just a handful of colors,” says the artist. “The intoxicating thrill is in watching forms come to life as the colors chemically fuse together while the glazes create millions of prismatic hues of luminist light.
I love painting the fluid transparency of water and sky with reflections as well as drawing the majesty of a clipper ship under sail. On occasion, I’ll capture the glint in the eye of a portrait.”
Flemish technique has given Arguimbau courage to write a book and spread this knowledge; Finding Rembrandt’s Medium, The Lost
Secret of Art is currently under edit. Watching people become engaged in the unique quality of his paintings propelled Arguimbau and his wife to open Arguimbau Art in Greenwich, Connecticut. Arguimbau and his son also opened the Mariner Gallery, which exhibits marine paintings in the historic district of Newport, Rhode Island.