Jerry Rose
Maritime Painter / JerryRosePaintings.com
Jerry Rose—OCH’s First Artist in Residence
Jerry Rose is a total art guy whose powerful, skillful, and evocative paintings of the Maine Coast and the Bahamas set the standard for both regions.
He is also a total boat guy, a shipwright who has built a number of wooden boats for himself and others, a long distance sailor, and to this day a champion oarsman in both single and double skulls.
In the tradition of Fitz Henry Lane and Winslow Homer, Jerry haunted the docks of Gloucester looking for good boats to paint and is still consumed by the challenge of getting boats right on his canvasses.
In the earliest days of Off Center Harbor’s development, in fact, it was Jerry who designed the logo you see on these pages. And during one of those gatherings to review Jerry’s sketches, it was Jerry who first coined the phrase Off Center Harbor Disorder (“OCHD”) to describe the maritime obsession that grips so many of us.
See Jerry’s video on How to Draw Good Boats.
Jerry’s Biography
Jerry Rose believes that great paintings are a product of deep emotional and intimate first-hand knowledge of subject matter. Drawn to coastal communities where people make their living from the sea and land, Jerry divides his painting time between coastal Maine and the Bahamas. He paints on site, which strengthens his understanding of the landscapes and people in these locations. His paintings cover a variety of techniques, which are done in watercolor, oil and egg tempera.
Jerry received his formal training in Fine Arts from Ohio University and Graphic Design from the University of Cincinnati, but his interest in realism came together 30 years ago when he felt it was important to paint a way of life that was quickly disappearing in the outlying islands of the Bahamas. That need created the search for methods of painting that would best describe the vanishing life before him and has helped him understand some of the old world techniques to which he subscribes.
He is a professional member of the International Society of Marine Painters and a signature member of the Florida Watercolor Society. His work has been published in The Best of Watercolor by Rockport Publishers and Coast to Coast: the Contemporary Landscape in Florida, A Gallery of Maritime Art, Painting Light and Shadow and numerous other art publications and magazines including Maritime Life and Traditions published in Great Britain. He has received numerous awards and has had many one-man gallery and private exhibitions. His work is in public and private collections in the United States, Europe, and the Bahamas. Jerry maintains a studio and home in Sedgwick, Maine, with extended trips to the Bahamas on his sailboat.
