Transcending the Ordinary

Rick J. Delanty captures the natural beauty and atmosphere of California in his landscape paintings.

by Bonnie Gangelhoff

Ask artist Rick Delanty how he chooses his subject matter, and he is likely to reply, “the four Ms”: mood, movement, majesty and mystery. “When I see one of more of these elements, I am fairly certain I have a painting,” Delanty says.

However, the California-based artist emphasizes that his paintings are not just about what he “sees,” but also about what transcends the naked eye in the ethereal, hard-to-capture elements of the natural world. With a four-decade career as both an artist and a high school art teacher, Delanty has created miles of canvases in his quest to convey the sublime.

Today he is best known for his lush landscapes and scenic seascapes depicting his native California. Straddling the line between abstraction and realism, Delanty often calls his style of work “expressionistic realism.” His paintings typically feature energetic brushstrokes and flourishes of color that evoke both the movement and the beauty of the Golden State.

Delanty grew up in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, and now lives in the seaside town of San Clemente, about 50 miles north of San Diego. For the artist, 2023 is unfolding as an exciting, fulfilling time in his lengthy career. Awards, kudos and gallery shows are coming his way and all at once, it seems.

In January, the prestigious Art Renewal Center in New York announced that Delanty’s painting ILLUMINATION as a finalist in the plein air division of its annual competition. April 6 through May 1, a group show including his works will be on view at the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association Gallery in Laguna Beach. In May, a two-man show with another California artist, Ray Hunter, opens at Waterhouse Gallery in Santa Barbara.

Because of his passion for art history, perhaps the most meaningful event for Delanty is his show titled Inspired by History: Rick J. Delanty and California Impressionists from the Boseker Family Art Collection that opened on March 16 at San Clemente’s Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens. Organized by Delanty and Amy Behrens, the center’s executive director, the show pairs 22 of the artist’s Golden State artworks with 22 master works by legendary California impressionists such as William Wendt, Albert Bierstadt and Armin Hansen. The historical art dates from 1865 to 1930 and is on loan from the Boseker Family Art Collection.

“The exhibit will demonstrate the connections of the contemporary with the historical in terms of the same location, concept, similar color palettes or subject matter,” says Delanty, who began painting works for the show in December 2021 and finished about a year later. The artistic foray took him to various locales around California, ranging from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in Northern California to the Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.

“It was a highly emotional experience,” he says. “I was excited, eager and conscious of the presence of these master artists. l wanted to reflect their works yet speak in my own voice. And I wanted to bring my A-game.” The show is an opportunity for Delanty to pay homage to the California masters who have influenced him over the course of his career. “Anything that is taught today grows out of history,” Delanty is fond of saying.

One pairing of the old with the new sees the 1865 Thomas Ross painting FORT POINT, SAN FRANCISCO BAY hanging near Delanty’s 2022 artwork THE GOLDEN GATE. In 1865 the San Francisco Bay was a bustling waterway filled with boats and various vessels, but it wasn’t until 1933 that the Golden Gate Bridge was built connecting San Francisco with Marin County. To demonstrate the contrast between the two works and periods, Delanty set up his easel in Crissy Field, to the east of the Golden Gate Bridge, and painted the scene now with the iconic structure arching over the bay.

“Of all the paintings in the project, this generated the most excitement for me,” Delanty says. “Having lived just north of San Francisco from birth through high school, I had crossed the Golden Gate many times. There is a mystique there, in the beauty of the city, the big ships on the water and the fog in the atmosphere. I weighted my easel down to prevent it from blowing over, took in the expansive view and breathed in the salty sea air. Every moment that I stood in the sand painting in that spot was precious, as though I were having an otherworldly experience. I was in the heart of plein air painting.”

When Delanty was growing up in the 1950s, Santa Rosa was a small, rural town in Sonoma County. He looks back nostalgically on those times-to memories of hiking in the oak-studded foothills of the Sonoma Mountains and swimming in the nearby Russian River. Delanty also recalls how his mother often took him on walks through the neighborhood, pointing out and identifying the native flora and fauna of the region. “That kind of rural life inspired a love of nature,” Delanty says.

Soon, to preserve his favorite scenes in his mind, the young artist-to-be began drawing the landscape. Eventually his early interest in nature and art led him to University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied fine art. In 1974, after graduating with a degree in studio painting and drawing, he accepted a position teaching in the art department at San Clemente High School, where he remained until 2006.

During those years as an art teacher, he painted in his free time and began exhibiting in the annual Laguna Beach Festival of Arts held every summer. In the beginning of his career, watercolor was his medium of choice, but it was the framing of these works on paper that caused a shift his medium and style. “I felt that viewing art through plexiglass was not an optimum experience for collectors, and museum glass was heavy and expensive,” Delanty says. “I turned to acrylics, which allowed my paintings to grow bolder, brighter and with texture. I eventually realized I also wanted to express more subtlety and that called for oils.”

Today, he regularly uses acrylics for bold and sunny subjects. For mood, atmosphere and texture, oils are the order of the day. In 2021, Delanty published a book titled Beauty Unites Us that features a collection of 50 of his acrylic and oil paintings accompanied by essays about his life and work.

The book is all about beauty. “As a working artist, I have the privilege of being a professional observer of beauty,” Delanty says. “What we see in the natural world is the visual portfolio of the supreme artist, the creator who has provided a world for us to enjoy. I believe the work of an artist is important: creating and bringing beauty into the world in the face of sometimes challenging and destructive conditions.”

Delanty conceived the idea for Beauty Unites Us in just such challenging, destructive conditions. In the spring of 2020, the country was in the grips of a global pandemic with major efforts underway to prevent illness and loss of lives, he explains. “I found myself painting more and asking myself how I might use my abilities to bring a message of hope to a darkening world,” Delanty says. “I know my life will not be long enough to paint all that I have planned or desire to create. For now, for today, it is enough to work, both inside and out, on the vision that God has given me: to express the beautiful wherever I find it.”

contact information
www.delantyfineart.com

representation
Illume Gallery West, Philipsburg, MT, www.illumegallerywest.com
Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA, www.waterhousegallery.com

upcoming shows
Inspired by History: Rick J. Delanty and California Impressionists from the Boseker Family Art Collection, Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens, San Clemente, CA, www.casaromantica. org. Through June 4.
4 Signature Artists in Residence, Laguna Plein Air Painters Association Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, www.lpapa.org. April 6-May 1.
Rick J. Delanty & Ray Hunter, Waterhouse Gallery. Opens May 20.

This story appeared in the April/May 2023 issue of Southwest Art magazine.

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