 About
the Artist
About the
Paintings
An
Essay by Porter Anderson
Paintings
Archive
Works
on Paper Archive
How to
Purchase
Paintings,
Drawings and Prints
Contact
the Artist
Links of
Interest |
Biography
|
|
Philip Gladstone was
born in 1963 in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, within
weeks of his father’s discharge from the United States Army.
Philip’s younger brother and sister joined the family four
and eight years later, respectively. His father began what was to be a
long and successful career in the graphic arts at that time, and his
mother stayed home to care for her growing family.
Both of his parents had grown up in Philadelphia and couldn’t
wait to get out, so when an opportunity for employment arose in rural
Maryland when Philip was less than two years old, his father happily
seized upon it. Philip spent his elementary school years blissfully
living in an old farmhouse in a village on the banks of the Choptank
River, half an hour away from the nearest store of any kind, playing
dangerously in the woods and cornfields. From there Philip moved with
his family to Maine, then to Florida, and finally to Connecticut, where
he continued to live for many years as an adult.
According to family legend, Philip’s first artwork was made
when he pushed his hand into his soiled diaper and created a mural with
the contents on the walls surrounding his crib. Later, when Philip had
access to
proper art supplies, his interest evolved to focus on cartooning, and
as a teenager he aspired to be a professional cartoonist. While in high
school he wrote stories for comic books that were accepted for
publication, earning four hundred dollars apiece for his
efforts, a staggering sum to him at the time. It
wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his interest in
drawing was expanding far beyond the limitations of the graphic
simplicity of comic art, and by the time he was seventeen he had
largely abandoned cartoons for painting.
In
1982 Philip Gladstone received a scholarship
to the prestigious Skowhegan
School of Painting and Sculpture of Skowhegan, Maine.
There he received
instruction from and worked alongside resident artists Jake Berthot,
George McNeill and William King, and
visiting artists David Hockney, Louise
Nevelson, Alex Katz and others.
The eighties and nineties saw events in Philip Gladstone’s
life moving at a rapid pace, even as he seemed to have no idea which
way he was going, or for that matter where he wanted to go. He was
married and divorced twice, and had two beautiful children along the
way in 1988 and 1991. He took a job in a picture framing and art supply
store because the company gave employee discounts on art supplies, and
within a couple of years he had purchased the store, rationalizing that
it was the best way he knew how to support his young family. It made
him miserable, but he nevertheless managed the store successfully for a
dozen years before business rapidly declined in 2001 and he was forced
to close the doors forever.
Throughout those years Philip continued to paint in an attempt to keep
his sanity. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
In 1997, Philip was married for the third time, happily at last, to his
beautiful wife Lauren. In 2000 his third child was born, and in 2004,
after trying everything he could think of to make a living after his
frame shop closed, he finally tried the obvious and was surprised to
find that within a short period of time he was able to earn a living as
an artist. (Click here
to see the first three paintings Philip Gladstone sold on eBay)
Today Philip Gladstone lives and works in a antique farmhouse in
rural Maine, USA, complete with an attached renovated barn that
functions as the artist's studio:
He spends his days at home with his
family and, of course, painting up a storm. He’s never been
happier or felt more blessed.
|
|
