Lilacs and Basket
Robert Thoren is a northern Virginia oil painter whose subjects include landscapes, city scapes and still lifes. His paintings are noted for their bold color, strong brush work, and good design.
He was heavily influenced early in his art career by Russian Impressionist painter Sergei Bongart, who immigrated to the United States following World War II and had an art school in Los Angeles. While Mr. Thoren never had the opportunity to study with Mr. Bongart, he did study for a number of years with former students/assistants of Mr. Bongart, including Eunice Martchenko, Sunny Apinchapong, and Joseph Mendez. More recently Mr. Thoren has taken workshops from Scott Prior and Michael Situ, both noted Southern California plein air painters.
Mr. Thoren's landscape terrain extends from the Piedmont to the Delmarva Peninsula in the mid-Atlantic, to Cape Cod up north. He and his family schedule yearly vacations to Cape Cod, where he is up and out painting everyday at first light. Participating in plein air competitions the last several years has also taken him out west to Estes Park, Colorado, and onto San Luis Obispo, located on the central coast of California.
Mr. Thoren has been juried into a number of regional and national plein air competitions over the past several years and has met with considerable success. Awards include "Best of Show" in the 2008 Estes Park plein air event; "Best Quick Draw painting" in the 2009 Estes Park event; and, most recently, a top award for "Most Creative Plein Air Painting" at San Luis Obispo in 2009.
Mr. Thoren was featured as the cover artist in the Sept 2005 issue of Elan Magazine. He was also one in a small group of local artists featured in an article on florals in the spring 2009 issue of Piedmont Virginian magazine.