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Michael Newberry

Sowing Stars and a Little Bit of Space Dust

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Michelangelo, Study of Haman for the Sistine Chapel, 1511, red chalk.

Michelangelo, Study of Haman for the Sistine Chapel, 1511, red chalk.

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Michael Newberry

Michael Newberry (b. 1956) is an avant-garde figurative painter whose work centers on the human figure as a vehicle for the sublime. After falling in love with Rembrandt at eleven, he left USC to study at the Royal Academy in The Hague and the Free Academy Psychopolis, beginning a decades-long practice of life-sized nudes that continues today. From early realist works like The Sculptor to large narrative canvases such as Pursuit and Denouement, his paintings integrate heightened color, charged body language, and symbolic composition to project human potential as something heroic and evolving.

Newberry has taught figure drawing and composition at Otis/Parsons, organized a Manhattan conference on the future of representational art at the Pierre Hotel, and exhibited internationally from Los Angeles and New York to Greece, Rome, Brussels, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. His 1990 Ascension exhibition combined painting, live music, literature, and sound design into a total aesthetic event; in 2017 he drove his own work cross-country for An American Journey. Alongside painting, he has written extensively: challenging postmodern theory, advancing a new evolutionary aesthetics, and publishing books including Evolution Through Art and Pandora’s Box and Other Essays.

Figurative Art

In a limestone cave, forty thousand years ago, a hand mixed spit and fat with ground pigments and applied it to stone walls in the contour of a bison. Its body curving with muscle, motion, and form. In the firelight, others gather, recognizing the powerful animal. They feel its mass and movement and perhaps are puzzled that it seems real and yet …

Long before temples or writing existed, long before cities, human and animal bodies were already being made in pigment, stone, bone, and clay. Across continents, figures appear again and again: herds running across rock, hunters in motion, sensual nudes, even super heroes (Lion Man). No institutions, and no scripture made these makers. Yet figurative art preceded it all.

A little child with a crayon draws a circle and adds two marks for eyes. Another line becomes arms. The page fills with faces and bodies before the child can write a sentence or name a belief. Figures arrive as if by embedded code.

From cave walls to scraps of paper, figurative art persists: to see a body, to feel its presence, to make it visible. And the image of humans remains understandable to all, crossing language, tribe, time, and doctrine. Everyone can stand before figurative art and recognize themselves within it.

Stephen Hicks on Michael Newberry

“My favorite living painter is an artist named Michael Newberry.” — Philosopher Stephen Hicks

Gérôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea: The Transformative Power of Art

In this short reflection, I explore Gérôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea—a stunning depiction of transformation and artistic creation. The painting captures the moment an artwork comes to life, embodying the timeless idea that art has the power to awaken the spirit and make the inanimate radiant.

The Newberry Art Files

The Newberry Art Files contain over 1,500 works created across more than five decades, reflecting an immersion in the continuum of 40,000 years of figurative art. This archive celebrates the passion, life, and energy of art-making. Inside, you’ll find figurative works, landscapes, and still lifes, divided by mediums: drawings (charcoal, ink, graphite), pastels, and paintings. It is my hope that you receive the breath of passion and inhale the radiance within every one of these creations.

The Sublime

The ultimate crystallization of the sublime is found in art. Sublime art elevates our perception/sensual awareness, exalts our emotions, and raises thought to a level previously unimaginable. The artistic sublimity inspires awe in our humanity, awakens our potential, makes us whole, and includes us in the magnificent 40,000-year continuum of human evolution.

Newberry Art Inventory

Newberry Art Inventory is my site dedicated to offering available artworks from my studio. Each piece reflects passion, intelligence, and sensuality in its creation. You’ll find figurative works, still lifes, and landscapes in oil, pastel, charcoal, graphite, and ink.

Over the last half-century, I’ve been blessed to place more than a million dollars’ worth of work worldwide. But being a collector is more than joining very good company, it’s shepherding a sublime legacy and becoming part of an ancient continuum that reaches back to the prehistoric cave paintings and spans to an evolutionary existence.

Transform your home into a sanctuary by adding a Newberry to it.

The Wave Series

The Wave Series is a collection of sixteen pastel wavescapes exploring a radically advanced color theory. By using four key elements—spatial depth, light and shadow, atmosphere, and the true colors of objects—the series transforms how form, light, and space interact. This breakthrough advances art history and deepens our visual perception. Learn more on the Wave Series page.

Archive of My Major Figurative Paintings

This archive presents my pivotal paintings that celebrate the human spirit and demonstrate the outer reaches of my artistic knowledge. These paintings explore how meaningful thoughts and emotions are expressed through body language, inventive composition, color and light theory, symbolism, and an ineffable quality of aliveness. As a whole, they show the spirit of eudaemonia: a sense of living a fulfilled life as an end in itself. The collection spans from my earliest life-size figurative works from 1977 through to today. By immersing yourself in these works, you get to experience what it would feel like if all your hopes and dreams came true, and hopefully feel inspired to make it so.

Contact

I welcome inquiries about shepherding my work in private, public, and museum art collections.
Michael
Email: mtnewberry@gmail.com

The Dreamgate Vision

The Dreamgate is a website focused on what is, to date, my most monumental project: the Space Series. It is comprised of fourteen life-size paintings of gods and goddesses set against nebula backgrounds, with twenty planned in total. It is my Sistine Chapel. But instead of a Christian ideal, it reflects my view of the primary forces of the human spirit. I believe it should be housed in its own museum. Accordingly, the site includes some concept sketches for that as well.

Newberry Art Inventory

Available art from my studio

Figurative Drawings

Figurative Oil Sketches

Figurative Pastels

Figurative Sketches

Landscape Pastels

Landscape Plein Air Oil

Still Life Drawings

Still Life Paintings

Still Life Pastels

The Wave Series

Sign Up for Exclusive Offers and Updates on My Work

Be notified about my art updates and available individual artworks and their prices. Within a set price range, you can choose what is most comfortable for you. I send updates two to three times a week. Treat yourself and your spirit with meaningful art that transforms your home into a sanctuary. If you'd like to join the list, simply follow the link and enter your email. Or simply email me at mtnewberry@gmail.com with "Subscribe" in subject line.

Available Major Works

These are my most ambitious and defining paintings, created at the limits of skill, conviction, and imagination. Each one captures a profound human moment: realization, love, emergence, or exaltation. A select group of these major works is currently available.

Social links:
Facebook Where I communicate with friends and collectors.
Substack Sharing my writing and art with other creatives.
Reddit Over 2.5 million views on my art posts.
YouTube Tutorials, talks, time-lapse, and reveals.

Photo of Michael Newberry by Stephen Hicks

Amazon Author Page

Michael Newberry is the author of art books that bridge art history, philosophy, color theory, criticism, and personal memoir, offering an original, deeply informed perspective drawn from over fifty years as a figurative artist. He unpacks how great art is the technology of the soul: built from technique, psychology, thought, perception, and the artist's sense of life. His books include Evolution Through Art, Newberry Color Theory, Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Stephen Hicks), The Art Studio Companion, and Pandora’s Box and Other Essays. These works draw readers into the hidden language of art and let them experience it as a powerful, meaningful force in their lives.

Since the birth of cognition 45,000 years ago, figurative has danced within all of us. -M N

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