ROBERT C. DEVOE

Born July 21, 1933, Canyonville, Oregon

Degrees in English Literature from Southern Oregon University and
University of California, Berkeley

Associate Professor of English at Southern Oregon University, Ashland,
Oregon, 1964-1985.

EXHIBITIONS

2006	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
2004	The Eloquent Flower, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
2004	Group Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
2003	The Eloquent Flower, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
2002	The Eloquent Flower, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
2001	Group Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
1999	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
1996	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
1995	Group Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		Seattle ArtFair '95 (Gail Severn)
1994	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR  
		Seattle ArtFair '94 (Gail Severn)  
1992	Group Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		One Person Show, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID.
		National Watercolor Society, 72nd Annual Exhibit, Los Angeles, CA 
		Seattle International Art Expo (Gail Severn)
		Spirit of the West Traveling Exhibit 
		Group Show, Jerald Melberg Gallery, NC
1991 	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
 		Group Show, "The Still Life", Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
		Recent Work, Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR
		One Person Show, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
		30th Anniversary Exhibit, Rogue Gallery, Medford, OR
1989	American Watercolor Society Annual Exhibition, New York, NY
		One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		Group Show, American Realists, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
1988	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		Inaugural Exhibit, The Corner Gallery, South Medford High School, Medford, OR
		Group Show, Contemporary Watercolors, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
1987	Fifty Watercolors, Invitational Exhibit, A Gallery, Palm Desert, CA          
		American Watercolor Society's 120th Annual Exhibit, New York, NY
		Two Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		West Coast Watercolor Society's Traveling Exhibition            
		Contemporary Still Life, Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, TN
1986	The Monumental Image, Watercolor USA Invitational, Springfield Art 
		Museum, Springfield, MO
		Chicago International Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
		Two Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		West Coast Watercolor Society Traveling Exhibition
1985 	Contemporary American Still Life, Frumkin and Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL     
		Chicago International Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
		One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		West Coast Watercolor Society Traveling Exhibition
		The Paine Art Center and Arboretum, Oshkosh, WI
1984	National Watercolor Invitational, Rockford, IL
		American Watercolor Society's 117th Annual, New York, NY
		Chicago International Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
		Northwest Watercolor Society's 44th Annual, Bellevue, WA
		Watercolor USA 1984, Springfield, MO
		Eugene Arts Symposium Invitational Exhibit, Eugene, OR
1983	Works on Paper, Frumkin and Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL
		One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		Three Person Show, John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA
		American Watercolor Society's 116th Annual, New York, NY
1982	One Person Show, Hanson Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR
		American Watercolor Society's 115th Annual, New York, NY
		National Watercolor Society's 62nd Annual, Laguna Beach, CA
		Northwest Watercolor Society's 42nd Annual, Bellevue, WA
	   	Group Show, Rogue Gallery, Medford, OR

COLLECTIONS

Artist Statement

A dozen years ago when I first became quite serious about trying to be a painter, I was obsessed by light and the desire to be accurate and complete in rendering its effects. It seemed to me at this time that I was responding to and celebrating the concrete beauties of nature. I still do paintings in watercolor that can easily be classified as "photorealistic" and that feature the quiet drama of light and shadow, but I'm no longer so sure that nature is my real inspiration.

Instead, recently I've begun to suspect that I'm willing to spend hours doing carefully detailed still lifes and landscapes not so much because I love the pots and flowers or the trees and mountains that I'm painting as because the paintings that result remind me of other paintings that I love: paintings by Constable, or Inness, or Bierstadt,or Degas, or Vermeer, or......Not that I'm arrogant enough to claim peer status with even the least of such models but that, as I'm coming to realize, the beauty that inspires me most is the beauty of art, not nature. It seems especially clear to me that when I do impressionistic pieces adapted from video images, I am (mostly unconsciously) trying to capure the feeling of a Manet, or Renoir, or Cassat.

So I have discovered that despite the fact that my painting process shamelessly uses the most current technical devices: photography, projection, airbrush, and recently even computer-manipulated images, my aesthetics are very traditional. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the idea of being part of a tradition, a centuries-long enterprise of search for beauty and meaning in which the humblest of us can labor, and hope from time to time to recognize in our own small contributions a distant echo, a reflected glint of what's most authentic and profound in human experience.