Edward T Stitt
Website
Biography
Ed Stitt has been living, painting and teaching in Boston for 40 years. His work is figurative and concise, using sound drawing and a strong sense of light to convey his vision of the world.
Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Ed first studied painting at Kent State University with Joe O’Sickey and Jack Beal. While at KSU, Ed became a practicing Christian and became very involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical parachurch organization. These choices have affected his life and art ever since. After graduation, he did portraits at Geauga Lake Amusement Park in Aurora, OH and Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh PA, as he bumped around trying to figure out his next step. He figured God must want him to be a missionary, so he went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, MA, where the Presbyterian church asked him to examine his calling. Upon deep reflection on his motivations and gifts, Ed decided he should drop out of seminary, figuring God could use a happy painter better than an unhappy missionary. In 1983 he began taking private drawing instructions with Paul Ingbretson of the Boston School at Fenway Studios. Ed began showing his work in April 1984 at Gallery NAGA on Newbury Street, Boston. He went on to receive his MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1985-1987 under the tutelage of Paul Rahilly and George Nick. He married in 1986; he and his new wife took up residence at Fenway Studios in 1989. Ed began teaching at Mass College of Art in the Continuing Education department, and has been teaching in an adjunct capacity at various colleges in the area ever since. He has had shows at Tibor de Nagy and Gallery Henoch in New York City as well as numerous one-person shows at Gallery NAGA in Boston.
Ed’s work has always been about light and life, contrasts, beauty, color, and intensity. He felt urban landscapes lent themselves to strong drawing and contrasts, bright colors, and juxtapositions of the natural world with the man-made. Whether portraits, still-lifes, or landscapes, Ed tries to paint the “Golden Moment,” when the subject has a timeless beauty, or is looking its best possible. More recently, Ed has come to the realization that he is no longer painting just what sees, but his take or interpretation of what he sees; that is, what he likes about what he sees. What occurs then is a kind of transfiguration of the normal into something greater. The result is bold, bright, strong images of local scenes around him which would not normally be considered beautiful but which become transfigured by the light and atmosphere at the particular time of day it is seen in. In this way, Ed affirms the beauty of the world we live in by focusing on that which is beautiful rather than that which is not.
Artist Statement
Ed Stitt’s paintings illuminate the extraordinary light and color observed on and in the ordinary people, places, and things of his urban environment.
Gallery Affiliations
Gallery NAGA
Awards
Blanche Ames Best of Show
Artworks in Museums and Collections
DeCordova Museum
Danforth Museum
Teachers
Paul Ingbretson, Paul Rahilly, George Nick, Joe O’Sickey
Education
MFA Massachusetts College of Art
BFA Kent State University
ed.stitt010@gmail.com
Phone
617-312-2165