Voices of Experience - George Van Hook

October Farm 24 x 30” Oil

From the first time we met George Van Hook in the early 1980s in Rhinebeck, New York, we were impressed with his intense commitment to his painting. His commitment began as a very self-motivated teenager with a supportive family and good formal education in art. He was born and raised in Abington, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. His family owned a farm in Bucks County, home of the Pennsylvania Impressionists and the artists of the Brandywine Valley, and George was inspired by their work and their academic training.

When he was in his early 20s, he had the opportunity to study and paint in Poissy, a western suburb of Paris. An invaluable part of his year and a half there was spent copying paintings at the Louvre as well as travelling and painting on location throughout France, Italy and Holland.

He returned to California where he studied the historical outdoor painting tradition of California painters …