(1934 - 2021)

Terry St. Johnis  among the most noted of the second-generation Northern California painters influenced by the 1960s Bay Area figurative movement. Like his teachers Richard Diebenkorn and James Weeks, St. John relied on intuition and direct observation in his boldly colored figure and landscape paintings. Using gestural marks, visceral paint, and pared-down, geometric forms, St. John's painterly realism reflects the dual influences of the Bay Area Figurative painting and the Californian Society of Six plein-air landscape painters of the 1920s. More palpably than these precursors, however, St. John’s work offers viewers a powerful experience generated by the paint itself, and by his use of experimental and deeply expressive color.