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J.E. KNAUF (b. 1948) |
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Born in 1948, and raised in beach towns neighboring Los Angeles, J.E. Knauf left California in 1966 to study art at Northern Arizona University. While becoming skilled at painting and drawing there, he often traveled the back roads of the Navajo, Hopi, and Apache reservations and explored Arizona’s rural mining and ranching communities in order to gather impressions of the West.
In 1970 Knauf transferred to the University of California, Irvine and studied under contemporary Avante Garde artists Tony DeLap, Billy Al Benston, Bruce Nauman, Robert Irwin, Vija Clemens and Ed Moses. He earned his Bachelors Degree in painting and spent his post graduate year exploring the art and architecture of Mexico, Europe, and North Africa.
Before he committed to painting full-time, Knauf applied his artistic abilities in many professions including resterauntuer, product designer, and landscape architect. His current work – paintings of Native Americans and Cowboys – combine original technique, powerful figures and illusive backdrops. It is with a very contemporary style that he captures images of the “old West.” His unusual technique includes painting on hollow core doors after having cut them to size and finished their edges. He covers this wooden surface in alternate layers of paints and glazes thereby creating a glassy finish. Of Knauf’s subjects, the Arizona Republic’s art critic, Kyle Lawson, recently said “…the faces are inescapable…like John Singer Sargent, Knauf sees beyond the skin and sinew.”
Knauf is a founding member of The Other Side of the West, a distinguished group of contemporary Southwestern artists currently exhibiting paintings at museums around the country. He has been the cover artist for Southwest Art and U.S. art Gallery and his work has been seen in numerous publications. His work is represented in major private and corporate collections throughout the U.S.