Peter E. Egeli
Peter was born in 1934 to a family of successful artists. In his teens, he studied painting at the Corcoran Art School in Washington, D.C., and after a three year tour of duty in the Marine corps, enrolled at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, wher his principal instructor was Jacques Maroger. Upon graduating, he attended the Arts Students League in New York and later George Washington Univeristy in Washington, C.C.. Fromk 1960 to 1967 he taught drawing and painting at St. mary's College of Maryland. He is a Charter membe, former President and Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists.
Since 1967, he has devoted full time to his career as a portrait and marine artist. Peter resides with his wife on a small, waterfront, farm in Southern Maryland.
Egeli's father was a painter for the Saddle and Sirlon Club, painting two portraits in 1967.
From peteregeli.com
The oldest of five children born to a family of artists, Peter Even Egeli was only five years old when his mother gave him his first lesson in perspective drawing. Growing up on his family's Southern Maryland farm, he developed an active interest in the outdoors and painted numerous watercolors of birds and animals, often using his paintings as covers for his grade school lessons. His father, the outstanding Norwegian/American portrait painter Bjorn Egeli, maintained a studio on the farm. Peter was often called upon to be a stand-in model for his father's subjects and would watch the progression of the portraits of famous sitters. In his father's studio, Peter often did charcoal self-portraits and drawings of friends.
In 1952, at the age of 18, Peter enrolled in formal art classes at the Corcoran School of Art. Four years later and after a tour of duty with the United States Marine Corps, he entered the Maryland Institute of Art, where in his final year he won first prize in the Senior Concours. From 1961 to 1967, he taught drawing and painting at St. Mary's College of Maryland and continued to develop as a portrait and marine artist.
His Norwegian heritage early manifested itself in Egeli's strong interest in ships and boats, especially nineteenth century wooden sailing vessels. In his spare time, he built a thirty-foot gaff cutter in which, with his wife and two children, he has sailed extensively. He has painted numerous marines in oil, watercolor, and pastel. Peter applies the same integrity of purpose to his painting of landscape and marine subjects as he does to his portraits. Depictions of historic vessels and places are all carefully researched and thoughtfully developed in a variety of mediums. He is a charter member, Fellow, and past president of the American Society of Marine Artists.
As a portrait painter, Peter Egeli is considered by many to be among the best in this difficult and demanding genre. His lifelike portraits grace the walls of boardrooms of government, industry and academia. Many hang in private homes where the decor of a room is often built around one of his insightful likenesses. He has an intense love for the art and craft of painting.
