Biography

Bruce North was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. The decision to pursue painting led him to study at Miami University, the School of Visual Arts, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Scenic painting at the Studio of Stage and Scenic Design and eventually to earn his MFA degree from Vermont College. In 1967, he was the head scenic painter at Guild Hall in East Hampton. A love of nature and its sylvan surroundings prompted him to relocate to the Susquehanna Valley, in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, and then on to the Finger Lakes in Ithaca, New York. 

An avid outdoors man, in his paintings North prefers to represent the moments of anticipation that precede, or the mellow memory that follows an event in nature. His investigation of these subjects is expressed with an obvious affinity to the late 19th century French, English and American landscape painters. He is accomplished in several media including, water color, oils, printmaking and charcoal.  Using his painting sketches as source material for larger works and printmaking as a means of elaborating on an initial theme, he enjoys the direct physical process of drypoint combined with the atmospheric qualities of aquatint.

As a representational painter he believes that attempting to craft an accurate copy of nature is not nearly enough, the painting must exist in a believable space, and it must reveal a personal truth observed in that moment.

Professor North has had numerous one-person exhibits in New York City, represented first by “FAR Gallery”. He was awarded a lifelong membership to Grand Central Galleries. His association with the gallery’s former director James Cox continues at his Gallery in Woodstock. Bruce has been featured twice in American Artist Magazine and included in “The American Sporting Print, 20^th Century Etchers and Drypointists”, and “The Art of Shooting Flying”. An etching of his appears in the Archives of American Art at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

His pursuit of personal artistic refinement extends to a lifelong teaching career. He is presently an Associate Professor of Art at Ithaca College in New York. He is included in several museum and important collections and has exhibited nationally in many one man and group exhibitions. North’s rare sporting etchings have been published nationally and are included in several collections.