Robert Frascella

Member since 2019

Robert (Bob) Frascella began drawing and sketching at a very early age. Much of his childhood and early adulthood was devoted to drawing and sketching scenes from everyday life. In college he pursued a different path, studying engineering and then working for many years as a Civil Engineer. Throughout his professional engineering career, Bob continued to refine his individual artistic style.

Bob works mostly in pastel focusing mainly on landscape and maritime scenes of New England. Bob draws on his technical skills to convey extraordinary detail in each composition. Many observers comment on the nearly photographic quality of his images, which is challenging to achieve with pastels. “What I like about pastel is its luminosity and its ability to capture light in a way that brings a scene to life.”

In addition to his landscape and maritime paintings, Bob is an accomplished painter of railroad transportation scenes. His work portrays the images of rail transportation in the post-war era in America when people traveled predominantly by rail and most goods were transported by train. His rail transportation paintings are exhibited on his railroad art website: www.olddepotgallery.com

Bob became Exhibiting Artist Member of the Rockport Art Association and Museum in 2019. In 2020, he received two awards for excellence in painting in consecutive exhibitions:

The Robert B. Donnelly, Jr. MD award for excellence in any medium (painting, graphics, or sculpture), August 2020

The William Meyerowitz Memorial award for an American Scene (painting, graphics or sculpture), July 2020

Bob is also a signature Member of the Pastel Society of Maine (2002) where his work was featured in five consecutive juried international pastel exhibitions.

Bob is a self-taught artist and has not had any formal art instruction. His work appears in many nationally recognized books and periodicals.

His original paintings are created in pastel medium on professional grade and museum grade sanded paper. Limited editions of signed and numbered Giclee prints are also available.

Bob and his wife, Joanne, are residents of Cape Ann on Boston's North Shore where he enjoys biking, kayaking, boating and photography.

All images ©Robert Frascella