 As "America's Best Known Living Folk Artist," Warren Kimble draws on more than 40 years of experience as a fine artist, teacher, collector, craftsman and antiques dealer to create a casual but sophisticated style of American Folk Art.
Warren is best known for his paintings of highly stylized animals and rural Vermont scenes using antique architectural wood as his canvas. His subjects and whimsical style evoke the spirit of the tranquil Vermont countryside.
His unique palette and his distinctive eye for detail combine with the antique texture of the wood to create a pleasing, enduring art that has attracted a wide following of collectors nationally and internationally.
 Warren is also the design leader for the Folk Art trend in home furnishings, giftware, textiles and tabletop. With nearly forty licensees, he represents the best of this traditional and accessible style, which has taken the market by storm.
As a fine artist, Warren has held one-man shows at the Frank J. Miele Gallery in New York, the Chase Gallery in Boston, and numerous galleries in Vermont, including Gallery on the Green in Woodstock.
Graduated from Syracuse University with a Fine Arts Degree in 1957, Warren has lived in Vermont for more than 30 years. He and his wife Lorraine operate Kimble House, Inc., in a group of restored 19th century farm buildings that include Warren's studio, a gallery, gift shop, showroom and office.
| Warren Kimble shares a 200-year-old barn with cows, sheep, chickens and pigs. A few fish, too. This is a fairly quiet group of livestock, and they smell more of paint and turpentine than sweet molasses grain. Warren's sunny refurbished barn studio is the perfect atmosphere in which to create his well-loved folk paintings. Landscapes, barns, florals and seascapes also flow from his brush onto the old salvaged wood he uses as a canvas. Various whimsical antiques and old signs create a mood that enables Warren to inhabit the world he paints. A swing hangs from the rafters and suggests that this is an artist who enjoys some fun. Rows of colorful antique sand pails indicate an eclectic taste in collecting. This fun shows itself in paintings like "Vermont Cow," where the black and white Holstein pattern is in the shape of the state. There are other hidden treasures to be found for the highly observant viewer. On beginning a new painting, Warren carefully chooses a piece of antique wood. The quality of the wood influences the composition he has in mind since knots, textures and marks in the wood are not disguised by the paint. Then a new image takes shape: rolling hills with sun-tinged grasses, a classic lighthouse, a humble farmhouse. Warren has developed and evolved his highly stylized folk imagery throughout his life. His background in education and art led him to an interest in antiques and Early American Folk Art. So a barn is the most fitting place for this unique artist to create his masterful works. And as long as the rooster crows in the morning, he will continue to do so. |
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