About Frank Metz

Frank Metz has been a landscape painter for over sixty years. During this period, although the objects and places in his landscapes have changed as well as the techniques of depicting them, what is clear is the underlying quality of the drawing. From the impressionistic work of three decades ago, to the solid and bold paintings of today the constant in Metz's work has been his draftsmanship, the patient wrestling with the detail of earth, stone, wood, water, and sky, seen with a born landscape painter's eye.

Metz's themes are the water's edge, shallows, pools, exposed sand and rocks and never the least, the sky. Skies are never adjuncts or merely the upper portions of his paintings; they are full of life as the land below, windswept in three or four directions, teeming with lavender, ochres, cerulean blues, pinks, grayed yellows and touched by all above.

About twenty years ago human traces were beginning to appear: buildings, boats, whatever was indigenous to the scene. These indications of people appear with great frequency now. The recent Long Island landscapes always include boats, houses, and trees and grasses of the South Shore. Throughout his career Metz has been inspired by coastlines of England, Scotland, Maine, Long Island, and Connecticut. His admiration for Constable, Turner, Corot, Monet, Sisly, Cezanne, Boudin, and Homer have been a constant source of strength and inspiration. The terrain that stirs some kind of primal force in Frank Metz, whether the Maine coast, Eastern Long island, or Litchfield County Connecticut, stirs a kind of recognition in the viewer who may never have been near these places.

All images and content © 2023 Frank Metz