Peter Dickison (b. 1960),
native of Rhode Island, first began to paint pictures of Newport in his teens. His artistic underpinnings originated from his study of painting at the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he earned a BFA degree in 1982. There, David L. Smith, a former student of the German abstract artist and teacher Hans Hoffman in the 1950's, along with Severin Haines and Richard Dougherty, both Swain graduates, were strong influences in Peter's early artistic development. The teaching at Swain focused on drawing and painting the figure in the life studio and studying the great works of art history. Of his study at Swain, Dickison explains, "I wasn't taught so much how to render an object in paint, but rather to recognize the experience of seeing it and translate that seeing to a canvas. First I attempted to understand the world around me visually, and only then I searched for my artistic voice in that world."

After Swain, New York City beckoned and Peter moved there to attend the Parson's School of Design Graduate Program in Painting. There he worked extensively from the model and studied with Paul Resika and Leland Bell, both of whom were also influenced by Hans Hoffman. Dickison found new sources of inspiration while frequently visiting the great paintings housed in the city's museums. He constantly drew, sketching the people he saw in public places and on subway trains as well as the paintings he saw in museums and galleries.

From 1983-86, Dickison was a studio assistant to the artist Nell Blaine (1922-1996) and he traveled with her between New York City and Gloucester, Massachusetts, including a painting trip to Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Ms. Blaine's study with Hans Hoffman had influenced her paintings, and it continued to play a role in her work and in the dialogue that developed between her and young Dickison.

"I was painting with a limited palette comprised mainly of earth pigments, greens and blue. Nell was using forty colors on her palette if she was using one. She didn't think she should limit anything. She cajoled me to explore a more pure use of color, but I wanted my own voice and was resistant. I have come to use color with greater resonance than I did then, with more pulsating color tensions, and I see that she may have had an influence after all."

Dickison spent a six-month sojourn in Provence, France, in 1989 to work with the Cleveland Institute of Art in Lacoste. There he assisted drawing professor Leonard Stokes, taught landscape and figure drawing, and painted prolifically in the landscape. The environment and culture of Provence made such an impression upon his work that he has made several return trips to France to further explore this influence.

For the next twelve years he lived in the Hudson River Valley north of New York City and established a studio where he began to create a new type of image. The earlier years of figure study and a desire to paint about human activity came together with his understanding of the landscape. A series of paintings and drawings of human figures that merge with the natural forms about them was the result, while the birth of his first child in 1999 inspired a familial quality to the figure groups in these works.

Dickison's affiliation with the Prince Street Gallery in New York City led to two solo exhibitions in Soho and Chelsea in 2000 and 2002. The latter show prompted reviewer Thomas Disch to acclaim Dickison as "the genuine article, a painter Cezanne himself would have paused to admire."

He has returned to Newport and works in his studio on historic Thames Street, near the city's waterfront. Dickison is on the faculty of the Newport Art Museum and is represented in Newport by Jessica Hagen Fine Art and Fisher Gallery.