Laurence Philip Sisson (New Mexico, 1928-2015), "Ides of March", oil on panel, signed lower left, with Wadle Galleries (Santa Fe, New Mexico) label affixed to the verso

sight: 36 x 48 in., frame: 45 x 57 in.

Provenance: The estate of prominent Austin, Texas attorney George Cowden

Laurence Sisson developed his artistic training through childhood classes at the Worcester Art Museum and later at the Yale Summer School, while his most formative artistic influence came from his time in Japan during the postwar U.S. occupation, where he was assigned to decorate a general’s residence in Yokohama and immersed himself in Japanese landscape and culture. He became known for imaginative landscapes of the Maine coast and the American Southwest, ranging from plein-air watercolors to large oil paintings incorporating abstract and Surrealist elements; drawing on Asian landscape traditions, his Western training, and his own “Yankee sensibility,” he created landscapes based on real locations but transformed into largely imaginary compositions. Sisson served as artist-in-residence at the Publick House in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and in 1955 became director of the Portland, Maine School of Fine and Applied Art. He was also the youngest member of the Watercolor Society of America, although he later resigned and did not participate in other art organizations.