Wellington Ward

Wellington Ward (1935 - 2016) was born in Virginia and spent most of his career in the South Florida/Fort Myers area. He produced marine life, landscape paintings, as well as commercial art and original lithographic prints. Preferring to paint what is old, Wellington Ward once commented, "To me, the old contains much more of the beauty of life than the shiny and new." Since his boyhood years around the seaport of Norfolk, Virginia, Ward had been fascinated with old, highly individualistic and vanishing boats and painted them with meticulous detail and affection. On land, Ward was drawn to the countryside settings that reflect rural life and stir memories of the uncomplicated days of the past. Ward enjoyed traveling over the coastal areas and countryside of Florida sketching nostalgic scenes that form the basis for his realistic, extremely detailed acrylic paintings.

Of his work, he said that his desire is not to be typecast as a landscape painter or a seascape painter, but rather, to be thought of as a painter and a step beyond that, an artist. For, as St. Francis of Assisi once said, "He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."