Professional artist to be at Sikeston Depot Saturday

Don Sahli will be at the Depot from 1-4 p.m. Saturday. Sahli will show and discuss his art as well as provide a demonstration for those who attend.

Submitted photo

Sikeston residents will have an opportunity to meet a professional artist Saturday at the Sikeston Depot Museum.

Don Sahli will be at the Depot from 1-4 p.m. Saturday. Sahli will show and discuss his art as well as provide a demonstration for those who attend.

Sahli’s work is currently represented in galleries around the country and in private collections nationally and internationally. He has been a professional painter earning a living as an artist for over 35 years, traveling through the country painting the landscape.

At age 16 he was exhibiting and selling his work at galleries in Taos, New Mexico and Texas. Then in 1982 he met Sergei Bongart, the famous Russian colorist.

“I attended a painting demonstration by Sergei Bongart at his summer workshop in Rexburg, Idaho,” Sahli says in the bio on his website. “There I saw Bongart use color, paint and confident brush strokes like I had never seen before. At that moment I knew I wanted to be a painter in this colorful tradition of the Russian School. My life was changed forever in an instant.”

At Bongart’s invitation, Sahli moved to Los Angeles and became Bongart’s last scholarship student and apprentice. Sahli was also a pupil of Sunny Apinchapong Yang, Bongart’s long time teaching assistant.

Sahli studied with Bongart for three years, until his passing in 1985.

In 1995, Sahli opened the Sahli School of Art in Evergreen, Colorado, where he continues the tradition of color and temperature in the lineage of the Russian masters.

Sahli keeps this tradition alive in giving back to the student, seeing it as a critical aspect of the artistic learning processes.

“I am a better painter because I teach and I learn from my students,” Sahli said in his bio. “The Russian tradition of painting continues. Bongart’s heavy steps are still heard in my classes and studios.”

On Saturday, Sahli will be painting a demonstration of oil painting technique, discussing his recent travels and paintings of the Missouri Spring Gardens.

“We’re just glad to have him,” said Janice Matthews of the Sikeston Depot. “We hope people will come out and enjoy his demonstration.”