Dear Friends,

We are pleased to present our first solo exhibition for the internationally acclaimed contemporary artist and pop artist, Don Nice. Growing up in California's San Joaquin Valley, Nice was encouraged by his grandfather and aunt, both amateur painters, to develop an interest in art. Also a talented athlete, Nice earned a full four-year football scholarship to the University of Southern California. After graduation, he served for two years in the United States Army assigned to Fort Ord on the California coast at Monterey. There he was a company-level illustrator and complete a twenty-four foot mural in the mess hall, while also teaching art at Monterey Peninsula College. He exhibited his work at the Carmel Art Center where he was introduced to an important art collector, Helen Potter Russell, who took an interest in his art. After his discharge from the army, he decided to study painting in Rome, Italy on his GI Bill. He moved to Minneapolis, married Sandra Smith, who he had met in Paris and taught painting at the Minneapolis School of Art.

In 1962, at age thirty, Nice was accepted to the graduate school of painting at Yale University, where the greatest influence for Nice was Alex Katz, who encouraged his students "to be as inventive as possible, to be as informed about art history as possible, and know as much about yourself as you can and get subject matter back into painting." Nice turned his attention to his own personal life experiences and his relationship with art, nature, culture, and the environment to develop a distinctive painting style that has continued to evolve during the past fifty years. Nice has had many significant solo exhibitions at noted galleries in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles since 1960s, as well as in Australia, Belgium, and Holland. Both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the MOMA own lithographs of the sneaker we have as a watercolor in this exhibition.

This exhibition will run through March 27.
Our hours are 10 am to 5 pm, Monday through Saturday.

The web exhibition for this show will be available soon for viewing online.

We also are available by appointment for private showings of a wide selection of works by the artists we represent. We provide private art consultation and can bring works to your home or office within Southwest Florida. During the season we show new exhibitions regularly starting in November and running through April.

Warm regards,

J. William Meek III
Owner-Director

January 14, 2014 Inaugural Visionaries of the Visual Arts Award (click for more information)