Artist Profile: Cindy House

Recent Awards:

• “Late Afternoon Marsh” – Silver Award, International Association of Pastel Societies, 27th Juried Exhibition.
• “Evening Light” – Western Art Collector Magazine Editor’s Choice Award,  55th Annual Art and the Animal Exhibition, Society of Animal Artists.
•  “Autumn Gathering” – Honorable Mention,  Animal and Wildlife, Pastel 100 Competition, The Pastel Journal

Cindy began her career by illustrating A Guide to the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. She has illustrated numerous books including the National Geographic Society’s Guide to the Birds of North America, Book of North American Birds for the Reader’s Digest Association, and A Field Guide to Warblers in the Peterson Field Guide Series. She has exhibited numerous times at the prestigious Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s ‘Birds in Art’ show. Her work is included in the permanent collection of that museum along with those of Bausch & Lomb Corporation and both the Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Audubon Societies. She is a member of the Society of Animal Artists. the Pastel Society of America and Artists for Conservation.

In the late 1980’s an exhibit of the landscape paintings of William Merritt Chase at the National Gallery in Washington, DC so inspired Cindy that she immediately enrolled in a pastel workshop given by Albert Handel. The focus of her work gradually changed from bird portraiture and illustrations in watercolor to that of pastel landscapes. Cindy has since studied the works of many of the French and American Impressionists and the Group of Seven in Canada. In describing her work, she feels that it has been greatly influenced by impressionism but developed into a technique that, in the end, is considered realism.

Cindy considers the greatest gift given to her by her mother was the ability to see and observe the splendor of the natural world. She now uses that gift to express herself with pastels and occasionally oils. Her goals in painting are twofold – to depict the beauty of commonplace segments of the environment and to capture a particular moment in time.

Galleries

• Haley & Steele, 162 Newbury St., Boston, MA
• Cooley Gallery, 25 Lyme St, Old Lyme, CT
• Haynes Galleries, 91 Main St, Thomaston, ME – 1600 Division St. Suite 140, Nashville, TN
• Edgartown Art Gallery, 19 And 27 South Summer St., Edgartown, MA

Awards

2014 –

• Prix de Pastel Award, International Association of Pastel Societies, 24th Juried Exhibition.
• Best Pastel, August/September, Plein Air Salon.
• Honorable Mention,  Landscape, Pastel 100 Competition, The Pastel Journal

2012 –

• Jack Richeson & Co. Silver Award, Pastel Society of America 40th Annual Exhibition, “Enduring Brilliance!”
• Honorable Mention,  Landscape, Pastel 100 Competition, The Pastel Journal

2010 –

• First Place, Landscape, Pastel 100 Competition, The Pastel Journal
• Bronze Medal, Annual Regional Juried Exhibition, Guild of Boston Artists
• First Place, Director’s Choice, Almost Miniatures, Francesca Anderson Fine Art, Lexington, MA

2009 –

• Fourth Place and Honorable Mention, Landscape, Pastel 100 Competition, The Pastel Journal
• Award for Professional Excellence, Department of Wildlife Ecology, University of Maine
• Silver Medal, Annual Regional Juried Exhibition, Guild of Boston Artists
• Honorable Mention, Laumiester Competition, Bennington Center for the Arts, Bennington, VT

Solo Exhibitions

•  2012 – Cindy House:  Windows into Nature, Haley & Steele, Gallery, Boston, MA
• 2010 – Islands of New England, Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme, CT
• 2009 – Landscapes Discovered, Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Visual Arts Center, Canton, MA
• 2006 – Cindy House: Preserving a Moment in Time, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
• 1999 – Cindy House, Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme, CT

Collections

•  Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
•  The Audubon Society of Rhode Island, Smithfield, RI
•  Museum of American Bird Art, Canton, MA
•  Bausch & Lomb, Inc

See more about Cindy House at her website: Cindy House