BARBARA McCANN

Barbara McCann was born and raised in western Pennsylvania, in the rural environs of Newcastle about 60 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. She began her artistic endeavors with drawing as a child, and then with painting in her teenage years. Upon graduating from high school, she took a four-year apprenticeship in architectural illustration and design, which set the stage for a career in commercial art. McCann moved to Florida in 1973, and for the next 20 years ran her own architectural illustration studio.

While maintaining her business, she explored a variety of mediums and methodologies for landscape and portrait painting. In the early to late seventies, she studied oils with acclaimed figure painter Marilyn Bendell. Also during this time McCann discovered the works of Nicola Simbardi, and Italian artist whose vision and style has been an enduring inspiration for her.

In the late seventies, McCann worked to develop a more fluid, translucent presentation in her art. At Bendell's suggestion, she took up watercolors, studying with renowned artists Valfred Thelin and Charles Reid. She combined her fine art talents with her commercial work by painting architectural renderings in watercolors, which caused a sensation among her clients. In the mid eighties, McCann returned to oils as the primary medium for her noncommercial art, utilizing watercolors solely for sketches of landscapes and people.

Interest in her paintings led her to open a gallery in Sarasota, Florida, where she continues to live and work. She finds aesthetic inspiration both near and far -- from the sunny climate of her home to locales she has visited in her extensive travels over the past twenty years, including the Caribbean, the West Indies, Central America, Greece and Europe.