Susan Grisell

"Connecticut Hillside" Susan Grisell, Mid-Century, American Impressionist Work

1966

Susan Grisell is from New Milford, Connecticut, USA, and remained in pastoral Western Connecticut along the Housatonic River, where she found inspiration in the surrounding natural beauty. At age 13, she declared - I will become an artist. Much of her artistic influence came from her friend and colleague, the impressionist Bernard Lennon, with whom she studied until his death in 1992. She recalls, "In my teens I watched him paint - just watched - but that was how I started to learn." Both Lennon and Grisell shunned what was popular in art and painted what they wanted. Commercial success was not a driving force - they painted for the love of it. Grisell's paintings evoke feelings of peace and tranquility. She is completely self-taught, relying on a personal sense of aesthetics to produce works of great beauty. She works directly from nature - en plein air. In the early 2000s, Grisell traveled to Venice and Paris, where she found new inspiration for the subject matter and produced masterly cityscapes.