Dean Mitchell is one of the most celebrated realists working in the field today. He was born and raised in the south which heavily dominates his genre. Old tobacco farms, worn elderly faces, worn down farms and houses of the south. He mainly paints the black middle and lower class. Working mainly in watercolor but he has also now working with acrylics and has worked in oils but watercolors make up the majority of his work.
Mr. Mitchell attended the Columbus School of Design and worked as an illustrator for Hallmark Cards and also 7 up before venturing into painting and fine art in 1983. He is a signature member of watercolor societies and even won the prestigious but now defunct Art for the Parks competition. The prize money for this coveted award was 50,000 dollars.
In 1995 the U.S. Postal service commissioned him to do some stamps featuring some of the great jazz musicians of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
When I see his work of the older worn down buildings it reminds me of the artist Ed Hopper and the way he used to mix whites and purples and yellows when painting buildings.
One year he won the prestigious Arts for the Parks
Mr. Mitchell was called a modern day Vermeer in 2002 by Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 2002.
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