Don Sahli - An American Painter
“Everybody looks for a label. I would like to be known as a painter – one who painted what he saw while wandering around on his journey.”

Don Sahli strives to continually expand his horizons and push the limits, presenting and creating his work in ways that are unexpected, fresh and stimulating. Instead of being limited by the technical bounds of painting and the expected response to subject matter, he takes these boundaries and uses them as the jumping off point - the start of something, not the end. And while Sahli's work can be seen as traditional with old world qualities that come from his background in the Russian School of Painting, it can also be seen as modern and contemporary - on the cutting edge in terms of color, design and passion.

Don Sahli made the decision to become a professional artist at a very early age. By the time he was 17 years old, art galleries in Texas and New Mexico were selling his paintings. Sahli has earned his living as a professional artist all his adult life. His work is presently represented in galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Aspen, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Breckenridge, Colorado; Wilmington, North Carolina, Sedona, Arizona, and Midland, Texas. He is quite prolific, producing numerous studio pieces — including public works and corporate commissions — and innumerable sketches and plein air works each year.

Sahli began his formal art education at the University of Texas in Austin. A year later, he met Sergei Bongart, the famous Russian colorist. At Bongart’s invitation, Sahli followed him to California and became his last apprentice. He remained with the Russian for three years, until Bongart’s death in 1985.

The broad range of Sahli's work shows his talent as a painter and his philosophy toward painting. “When I look at a painting, I want it to bring me back to when I was on the scene. I want it to convey the drama and emotion that first captured my attention – the atmosphere and the soul of the place. This is the goal of my work - to go past just the image to touch the viewer in a way that evokes emotion”

Rather than just reproducing the object or telling a story, Don Sahli creates his images with the dramatic and subtle use of color. The viewer's eye sees the vivid color and reacts to the color - each perception unique. Sahli's paintings are also filled with the contrasts of heavy textured brushstrokes to soft fluid washes. As Beethoven took distinctive approaches to the art of music - he wrote the Requiem Mass, the light airy moonlight Sonata and the Ninth Symphony - Sahli approaches each painting expecting to make it truly distinct from the last. Instead of seeking a niche, finding something that is comfortable and familiar, and painting to that, Sahli endeavors to expand the possiblities. Yet, there is something that unites all the work - it is designed to create an emotional interaction between the viewer and the painted image.

Sahli lives with his wife, Cindy, and their two sons; Jeff and Sam, in their mountain home in Evergreen.  See the painting of his garden and his art school studio and gallery below.

Check our website often, to see Don's latest works and to get information on Don's upcoming events. For information on commissioned paintings, please contact us.

See the latest feature article on Don, his artwork and career as an artist in the March/April 2006 issue of Art of the West.  For further insight into Don and his life and thinking as an artist, please see the article in the July 2003 issue of thescreamonline.com, an internet magazine for Art, Poetry and Literature. This pictorial article covers Don's month-long painting excursion in Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone, Colorado in February of 2003, and is narrated by Don himself. Go to www.thescreamonline.com and look up the article under "Past Issues".