Contemporary Southwest Oil Painter
  Jim in his studio |
Sometimes his body is still, but never his imagination. Jim Rabby is a consummate painter, whose work cuts across all boundaries, with intertwining color, movement and texture. His paintings reflect the sensitive, yet expansive philosophy he infuses not only in his work, but in everyone with whom he comes in contact. Painting since the tender age of 13, Rabby has spent more than 40 years with brush and palette knife in his hands. He uses these tools to let his spirit, and yours, soar through art. |
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Canvas: The finest Belgian linen is hand stretched over heavy duty finger jointed pine stretcher bars to ensure stability and resistance to warping over many years. Oil Paint: Pure professional artist's oil colors of the highest quality and light fastness are used allowing high light refractive and luminosity of color. No extenders or adulterants are ever employed. Framing: Gold or Silver leaf mouldings and fine Belgian linen liners of the highest quality are custom cut and fitted to your painting at the Rabby Studio & Gallery. Both Jim and his assistants work on each frame individually to create a unified presentation of painting and frame. Final Glazing: Hand applied Damar Varnish protects your painting from the harmful affects of air and light. This final application ensures the color will remain at its highest peak of resonance. |
| Jim Rabby has developed a style that embodies his personality and the response to his paintings has been as positive as the man painting them. “I picture myself like a race car, going down a winding road as fast as I can go,” he says of his painting process. “It’s an adventure, trusting trust. I hang on and have a great time. The painting just races along – it’s simply synaptic – calling for what it’s calling for, certainly faster than I can think.” |
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At the age of nine months, Rabby contracted polio.
He considers it the single, most powerful, positive event in his life. Raised in Houston, Texas,
Jim’s incredibly formative time as a youth was spent in and out of charity hospitals.
He had operations all through the fifties: the drugs given with those operations
had a deep influence. Jim started painting in the back room of his
parents’ art supply and frame shop. At the age of nine, he had a profound
vision that he was a sculptor who was going to be painting.
Jim felt that if he gave it everything he could possibly muster, every
resource, he could accomplish doing some really great art work. Rabby studied economics at the University of Houston, painting to put himself through school. Inspired by Picasso whom Jim believes lived in “voracious curiosity”; Jim experimented with many styles and mediums, from painting exotic dancers on stage to portraying sporting events. His reputation grew and soon his work was exhibited in major museums and corporate headquarters throughout the country, such as IBM, Honeywell, General Motors and Coca-Cola. Lyndon Johnson, whom Jim spent a day with in 1972, joined his list of private collectors, which also includes Johnny Carson, Jimmy Connors and H.L. Hunt among others. In the early seventies Jim opened The Westheimer Gallery. He exhibited his work exclusively and painted in his studio on the third floor. He also maintained a studio in beautiful San Miguel de Allende. Rabby painted voraciously in both of his studios. A wonderful lady friend who taught ballet at the Bellas Artes in Mexico told Jim she had a vision of him moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. On a snowy February day in 1983, he did just that. Jim is now showing his work in Santa Fe at his studio and gallery located at 734 Dunlap Street, just eight blocks west of the Plaza. At once outrageous, insightful, playful, thoughtful, creative, passionate, original, imaginative, unassuming, resourceful, courageous and charming, it is no wonder Jim Rabby has captured the hearts of collectors throughout the world. |
Jim Rabby lives as he paints - with gusto and aliveness - and it is the continual wonderment about the world that gives him his inspiration. It is a reflection of his incredible excitement about being alive that gives rise to what have become known as Rabby-isms: |
"Creativity is a vehicle of curiosity." "I hang out with great curiosity in the moment, and the song sings me." "The intimacy of uninhibited expression." "I move forward like a dolphin on a freight train." "It's already all there- I just leave off any part that looks like K-mart." "The intimacy of uninhibited expression." "Standing on legs that call for attention every moment is a great vehicle to being so immediate every moment." "I have great fun being me." |
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