LORAN SPECK GALLERY

Gene Speck:   December 19, 1936 to Present

Gene was born in South Dakota in 1936. He grew up in California but developed a love for the wide open countryside and more of a private, peaceful, simple life. Gene worked in his father’s bakery until going into the military.  He began to paint seriously at the age of thirty-five and is completely self-taught without formal training. Gene embarked on his career in the early 1970s in Northern California. He watched his brother Loran selling his work successfully in local art shows. He realized his love and passion that poured into his art and began selling his work in Bay Area street shows. He lived a meager existence while honing his craft. After a few years, a San Francisco Gallery offered to represent him. After that, more and more galleries took notice to his work and wanted to exhibit his art. He has had a plethora of shows, awards, and honors for his achievements. Collectors were stunned by the photorealistic detail and refinement he displayed in every painting, which separated him from other artists in the market and contributed to his overwhelming success. Gene Speck is a gentle, simple man. His art relies on the heightened consciousness that comes from putting a part of himself into each painting so completely that, as he says, he would “rather be there than in the here and now”. He gets very still, very quiet, and absorbs what he sees. The resulting works of art go beyond realism. They are real, in the purest and most basic sense of the word.