For years, Colin Callahan has been painting the scenes of St. Paul’s School.
As the fine arts program head and director of the Hargate Gallery at the school, Callahan has spent countless hours on the grounds with his easel and paints. He even painted one pond at the school every day for an entire year. Now that would be one epic painting flip book.
And if you go to the Friends Charity Auction on Friday, you could be the proud owner of a Callahan original. Callahan is one of 26 artists to donate work for the 15th annual auction to benefit the organization’s Youth Mentoring Program.
“The school has a really close relationship with the Friends Program,” Callahan said. “It’s a great program.”
This is Callahan’s third year participating in the event and chose to donate a 30-by-20 oil painting of the Lower School Pond in winter on mylar. Just to be clear, those measurements are in inches, not feet, and mylar is essentially a heavy piece of plastic.
“It’s one of those scenes where you’re in the middle of winter and it’s cold. It’s a lot of snow and pines. There’s some open water and some ice,” Callahan said. “I like scenes that will get a person to look at it again.”
Callahan specializes in landscapes and still life, but has also been known to do a portrait or two, including a couple that hang in the family home of his two daughters. Callahan has been all over the world, painting famous settings like the Rome Forum and recreating many famous pieces by French artist Eduard Caret. During his sabbatical from St. Paul’s, Callahan moved his family to France for a year where he painted for about seven hours a day.
But it was his time spent in an international high school in Italy that really turned Callahan on to the arts.
“I got really interested in art and art history over there,” Callahan said.
When he came back to the states after high school, Callahan attended Holy Cross, where he graduated with a degree in art history. He worked on Wall Street for a short period of time, but still had a greater interest in the arts.
“I found I was going to museums or sketching on the weekends,” Callahan said.
Soon he got the job at St. Paul’s and has been there for the last 31 years. It’s where he met his mentor Thomas Buechner, who was hired by the school to paint landscapes of the grounds.
“I was put in charge of showing him around,” Callahan said. “He was a huge influence, my biggest influence. He taught me oil painting.”
Until then, Callahan had mostly worked with watercolors, but since meeting Buechner 25 years ago, he works specifically with oil. The two traveled all over Europe painting and became very close. The easel Callahan uses in his home studio was left to him by Buechner. Oh, the stories it could tell. After all, they do say pictures are worth a thousand words.
The piece in the Friends Auction took about 20 hours to complete, which is about two weekend sessions for Callahan, since his painting is now limited to Saturdays and Sundays during the school year.
“You just have to lock in the time and go,” Callahan said.
Many vacations have been spent painting in France, Italy and Germany, where he also teaches for three weeks each August.
And if you miss out on Friday’s auction piece, don’t worry, because Callahan sells quite a bit of his work. To see more, visit colincallahan.com.
