Timothy James Standring

Timothy James Standring recently followed the footsteps of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) throughout the cantons of Switzerland. Standring strove to paint his watercolors with the same verve, energy, and brio of the British’s master’s Swiss watercolors, especially those of Mont Rigi above Lake Lucerne that Turner painted in the early 1840s. Standring also painted in Zurich, Schaffhausen, Lausanne, Lucerne, Auth, Brienz, Schloss Oberhofen on Lake Thun, Geneva, Mont Salène and Fort l’Ecluse (both in present day France). The results are stunning in their bold, free handling of the pigments with a one-inch-wide goat hair brush for many of the sheets. In some cases, Standring’s homage to Turner enabled the Denver artist to produce unexpected visual statements.

Though small in scale, Standring’s watercolors pierce the assumed poetics the medium aspires to express. Over the past decade, he has brought a gimlet-eyed attention to a painterly parity of close observation and delight in his material. Deft material sensitivity and technique, both traditional and radical, register in the recurring themes he paints. In addition to Turner, Standring’s influences stem from Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent, to Joaquín Sorolla and Andrew Wyeth.

Standring’s watercolor reflect a preference for painting with the pigment-loaded sable belly instead of the brush’s tight point which results, surprisingly, in marks and images reminiscent of dry brush oils on unprepared paper. Such heavily pigmented watercolors enliven the poetic statements his compositions sustain. Moreover, his meditative observation of intimate scenes and settings emerge despite the challenges that the fickle medium presents.

A sensitive and voluble teacher, Standring conducts watercolor painting workshops in Rockland, Maine, at the Maine Coastal Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center, at the Art Students League in Denver, and at the Lunenburg School of Art, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. His legacy as an artist and scholar has influenced generations of artists. Many around the nation, and indeed, the world are indebted to his generous mentorship.

On three occasions Standring’s works have been included in the prestigious 10 x 10 x 10 Exhibition in Tieton, Washington; twice in the Coors Western Art Exhibition in 2022 and 2023, and in the Governor’s Art Exhibition in Loveland, Colorado in 2023. National critic Ray Rainaldi reviewed one of Standring’s monographic exhibitions in the Denver Post, Denver; Peter Trippi gave a shout out to Standring’s exhibition at Claggett-Rey Gallery, Edwards, Colorado, in Fine Art Connoisseur; and Chris Crossman wrote about Standring’s exhibition in 2024 in Rockland Maine in American Watercolor. Standring’s works are held in numerous private collections across North American and Europe.