Ramon is a member of the American Watercolor Society, the Allied Artists of America, Pastel Society of America, Prix de West (formerly National Academy of Western Art), Knickerbocker Artists, Oil Painters of America, Representational, and the Whiskey Painters of America.

In 1985, the Pastel Society of America designated Ramon a Master Pastelist, and in 1986, Ramon was elected to the Pastel Hall of Fame by the Pastel Society of America, New York City. In 1990, he was elected to the Colorado Institute of Art Hall of Fame.

Other awards include:

• Windows to the Divine Fra Angelico Artist of the Year (2009)
• Pastel Society of America (Canson Inc. Award)(2005)
• Oil Painters of America (Meritorious Award)(2003)
• Art Masters Award, NYC (1996)
• Pastel Society of America, NYC (Virginia M. Ward Memorial Award)(1995)\
• Pastel Society of America, NYC (MJ. and Mrs. A. Giffuni for Exceptional Merit Award) (1994)
• Wyoming State Museum, One Man Show, Cheyenne, Wyoming(1994)
• The Allied Artists of America, NYC (Grumbacher Gold Medal)(1993)
• The Colorado 100 certificate of Recognition (for contributions and lasting impact on the arts in Colorado)(1993)
• Pastel Society of America, NYC (Barbara and Gary Scott Award for Landscape)(1993)
• Pastel Society of America, NYC (Pastel Society of America Board of Directors Award)(1993)

People, Ramon says, play an important part in his paintings. His sensitive character studies are included in the Seattle Frye Museum, the Santa Fe New Mexico Museum of Fine Art, the Spokane Museum of Native American Cultures and the Academy at West Point, along with many other public and private collections.

Books:

• Ramon Kelley Paints Portraits and Figures – by Ramon Kelley and Mary Carrol Nelson
• The Five Essentials in Every Powerful Painting – by Ramon Kelley

Upcoming Shows/News:

Ramon’s works will be exhibited in the Collectors’ Reserve at the Gilcrease Museum

Representative Works:

Lu Cong was born in Shanghai, in 1978. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1989. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of Colorado. Lu turned his focus to art after earning degrees in Biology and Humanities. His works have been exhibited at Henoch Gallery, New York, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York, Arcadia Fine Arts, New York, Cory Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, the University of Connecticut, Storrs, the University of Denver, Denver, Quidley & Company, Boston, Vail International Gallery, Vail, Gallery 1261, Denver, and many more. His recent projects include Find Me When You Wake Up (2013-2015), 24 Drawings 11 Dreams (2014-2015), and Little Accidents and Pleasure (2015).

Representative Works:

Born in New York City, David A Leffel graduated from Parson’s School of Design while also attending Fordham University at night. Between 1959 and1960, with the help of a Merit Scholarship, he learned the fundamentals of chiaroscuro painting at the Art Students League of New York in Frank Mason’s class. Only a few years later, he returned to the League as an instructor and in the next 25 years left an important legacy of influence with the thousands of students whose lives he touched while teaching them about life and art in the north light of Studio 7, a classroom that boasted such past instructors as Edwin Dickinson and Frank Vincent Dumond.

Leffel’s work has been exhibited in numerous important shows, including the National Academy of Design in New York City, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK, and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City where he was a member of the artists’ group NAWA (National Academy of Western Artists), which later became the Prix de West show. In their annual show his work received one silver medal and three gold medals, his first gold being awarded to a self-portrait. He was part of the artists’ stable in New York City’s Grand Central Galleries in the 70s and 80s, and as his reputation as a consummate artist grew, he received a visit from one of history’s most intriguing political figures, Madam Chiang Kai-shek. Her interest in Western painting and specifically in Leffel’s work may explain his current widespread popularity in China, which started years ago with an invitation to the First American Art Exhibit in Beijing, China and reemerged in a recent traveling exhibit of realist artists with the America China Oil Painting Artists League (ACOPAL).

Leffel is not only recognized by his peers as a painters’ painter, he is also considered by many to be no less than the artistic reincarnation of Rembrandt. He continues to spread his special understanding of how painting works with students worldwide through membership to an online instructional library, The Artists Guild at Bright Light Fine Art.

Leffel’s work resides in the permanent collection of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK; the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, TX; the J.B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY; the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Foundation in Montreal, Canada; and the New York Racing Association in New York, NY, which acquired his famous painting of Belmont Race Track. His work is also found in some of the most important private collections compiled today. In May of 2016 Leffel will have a comprehensive retrospective at the Weisman Museum in Malibu, California where work from as young as age 12 will hang along side his most recent masterpieces.

A talented writer, Leffel has authored two books, An Artists Teaches: Reflections on the Art of Painting and Self-Portraits: A Journey of Insight, both published by Bright Light Publishing. Bright Light Fine Art and director George Gallo are working on a documentary of his extraordinary life that should be completed by early next year.

Links to Videos/Articles:

• Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Leffel/131099530323945
• Website: www.davidleffel.com
• Workshops and news: http://davidleffel.com/workshops/
• David’s DVDs and books: http://davidleffel.com/books-dvds-giclees/

Representative Works:

As a young woman in Oklahoma City in 1978, Sherrie McGraw was urged by her teachers Richard and Edith Goetz to move to New York City to study at the famed Art Students League where they had studied within the lineage of Robert Brackman and George Bridgeman. In her initial years at the League, McGraw studied primarily with the legendary artist David A Leffel, but she also learned anatomy through Robert Beverly Hale and Jon Zahourek at the New York Academy, and later with one of the art world’s leading experts on drawing and painting the horse from life, Ned Jacob.

By the time she was thirty, she was teaching classes at the Art Students League, having been asked to take over those of Thomas Fogarty and Gustav Rehberger, as well as conduct her own.

Currently, McGraw teaches workshops throughout the country, giving lectures and demonstrations for art institutions such as the Portrait Society of America, Weekend with the Masters, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Brigham Young University, the Art Students League of New York and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she was recently awarded an honorary doctorate. Her work has been shown in major institutions including the Butler Institute of American Art, where they hosted a large retrospective in 2014 and soon after, awarded her their highest honor—Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement in American Art. She now joins the ranks of legendary art dealer Leo Castelli; sculptor Louise Nevelson; and influential director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas Hoving. Her work is in numerous prestigious collections, such as that of Senator John Warner, the Mellon family, the Forbes family, John Geraghty, Forest Fenn, Howard Terpning, Art and Catherine Nicolas and John Mellencamp. She was also the vice president of American Women Artists, an art organization that curated a cultural exchange exhibition in Sorrento, Italy in the year 2000.

McGraw is one of the leading proponents of Abstract Realism, which derives its name from the abstract appeal achieved when beautiful configurations of paint combine with a recognizable image. The result becomes a visual undercurrent that quietly moves the viewer through a painting. A visual concept, independent of story telling or literary intent, lends gravitas to an image that might otherwise be—at its extreme manifestations—merely self-expression or technical facility. She teaches online through a library of instructional videos called the Artists Guild, which is offered on www.brighlightfineart.com.

McGraw is the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Language of Drawing: From an Artist’s Viewpoint, which has drawn worldwide attention for its clear and simple approach to the art of drawing. She edited and wrote the foreword to The Drawings of Nicolai Fechin by Russia’s famed author Galina Tuluzakova, and co-edited Galina’s new scholarly treatise on Fechin’s legacy to the art world, Nicolai Fechin—The Art and the Life. She is presently writing an instructional book on painting.

Representative Works: