Native Bostonian Dennis Sheehan received his artistic training in the best traditions of the “Boston School,” studying at the Vesper George School of Art, the Montserrat School of Visual Art and adding private work with two of R.H.Ives Gammell’s former students, Robert Cormier and Richard Whitney. Sheehan has joined the fine attention to technique derived from his education, with its meticulous emphasis on light and dark “values,” with a style of landscape painting which evokes the tradition of American Tonalism. As with George Inness and the other 19th century Tonalists, Sheehan is interested in the subtle tones and color harmonies of light on landscape in its transitional moments - dusk, dawn or immediately before or after storms. It is then that small amounts of light and color in an otherwise somber environment produce piercingly beautiful effects. Sheehan is a member of the prestigious Guild of Boston Artists. His work is part of extensive private and corporate collections at home and abroad, including those of President and Mrs. Clinton, Prince Faisal Al Saub of Saudi Arabia and the corporate collections of Marshall Field, Hale and Dorr, and Scudder, Stevens and Clark. Artist's Statement “The transitional period of dusk, before and after a storm and even those grayed out days in winter when the sun’s light is most effusive, these are the qualities of light that I am most interested in. The mood that the light evokes, the color harmony and the subtleties of tone with less emphasis on detail are of prime concern to me. My goal is to have the painting emanate light, rather than be just a surface that records the reflection of light. This is why the shadow areas are important, for it is from them that this emanation proceeds. The light areas are focal points of this effort, but the power comes from the shadow.”