Bob LeFevre, a resident of Seabrook Island and Salem, SC, retired from a successful career in business at the age of 55 to pursue his passion for oil painting. Since childhood, he loved the water and everything related to it, so naturally his painting from the start would depict scenes of life on and near the oceans and lakes he would visit throughout his life.
Bob’s painting career began early. At the urging of his fourth grade teachers, he was enrolled in private art classes. With these classes he began to develop his perceptual skills as an artist, learning the fundamentals of rendering and depiction of values in a representational way. He continued these lessons throughout elementary and high school. Bob joined every art club and organization he could and soon began winning awards, the first of which was a sculpture scholarship at a local academy. He still enjoys sculpting to this day.
At the age of eighteen, Bob took private lessons from a retired sea captain in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. There he painted his first clipper ship and his passion for painting scenes of the sea was born.
Bob attended Colgate University majoring in business and selecting art as a second major. He earned extra money drawing caricatures of his classmates and selling them to teachers and local town’s people.
After graduation, Bob pursued a career in business knowing he would eventually return to art on a full-time basis. After 33 years as an executive with Proctor and Gamble, PepsiCo, and as owner of The United States Playing Card Co., he retired to pursue his dream of painting full time.
Continually driven to develop his skills, Bob sought out life drawing lessons that included nine years at the Academy of Cincinnati, Plein air workshops and by teaching drawing and painting to teenagers and adults.
Bob maintains studios at both his Seabrook Island and Salem, SC homes, the latter sits on Lake Keowee in upstate SC. Bob has been giving weekly individual and group art lessons to several Seabrook, Kiawah and Johns Island artists for over 14 years. He always welcomes new participants. If you are interested in lessons, please contact Bob at: rodory@gmail.com or 513-237-4757.
Bob was President and Vice President of Education for the Seabrook Island Artist Guild with over 100 members. He was represented by the Spencer Art Galleries in Charleston and now maintains a gallery at his home on Seabrook Island.
Please join Bob for a reception on June 1 from 4:30-6:30 pm. The reception will be held at The Lake House.
-Submitted by Bonnie Younginer, SIAG
(Image credit: SIAG)