1936-2003

    There are two basic poles in the work of John Dehlinger.  There are his watercolors, pastels and mixed media, done quickly, often on the spot, and his paintings in egg tempera that progress slowly and are more detailed and thought out – always done in the studio.  The former are emotional statements that capture that first visual excitement the artist feels.  The latter are thought through and contain a distillation of half a lifetime living and working in Maine.

Dehlinger’s paintings are in the great tradition of American Realism.  There is a continuity from the Hudson River painters through Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth that is American in content and subject.  Dehlinger continues in that tradition – adding his personal view of the world.  He feels that the basic difference between European and American painting is that the Europeans look to other paintings and painters through their long history.  The Americans had to look at nature and symbolic meaning within nature.