Born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1936, Joseph Cave
attended the University of Georgia (Athens, GA) where he studied painting
from 1954-58. He went on to attend the San Francisco Art Institute (San
Francisco, CA) and received a BFA in Fine Arts in painting in 1962,
and a Master of Arts in 1964 from San Francisco State University. Cave
has taught at several institutions including The Memphis Academy of
Art, Southwestern at Memphis, San Francisco Art Institute, and San Francisco
State University. Though trained as an abstract expressionist, he is
inspired by early landscape artists, American scene painters, and French
Impressionists.
Cave primarily works in oils creating dramatic landscapes,
harborscapes, and still-life paintings. He continues to create handsome
etchings, often choosing floral still life or views of travels as subject
matter. Recently Cave has begun working in egg tempera on artist’s
panel for smaller paintings. He always prepares the surface before painting,
making his own gesso with rabbit skin glue, titanium white pigment,
and marble dust. Color, bold line, and shadow are masterfully woven
together in each landscape painting culminating in “a place”
where every viewer wants to be or has been.
It is likely that time spent in Portugal, where he
lived for a number of years with his wife Jessica, and two children,
Adam, and Sarah, had great influence on his painting. He has since returned
to his native South Carolina where he resides in Georgetown in a lovely
home which was once a schoolhouse that he and Jessica have painstakingly
restored.
Joseph Cave's landscapes and still-life paintings are
widely collected and have been in numerous one-man exhibitions throughout
the United States and abroad.
