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Michael Newberry

It Is Light That Defines Us

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Tag: pastel on black paper

Posted on November, 2019April, 2026

Nude Reclining

Newberry, Nude Reclining, pastel on black paper, 20x30"

I drew this the other evening from a live model. It is play on Duchamp's Nude Descending

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The Space Series

The Space Series is an epic cycle of 24 life-size paintings — each 64×48″, oil on linen — of gods and goddesses set against nebula backgrounds. Spanning birth to old age, it embodies the theme that the shadowed self is transparent and the stuff of the universe, while it is the light that defines us. 16 of 24 completed. Entirely self-funded and uncompromised.

Michael Newberry

Michael Newberry (b. 1956) is a figurative painter, theorist, and writer who has worked full-time as an artist for five and a half decades. He has placed over one million dollars worth of work worldwide and exhibited internationally from New York and Los Angeles to Greece, Rome, Brussels, and Washington D.C. He is currently completing the Space Series, a monumental cycle of twenty-four 64x48" paintings of gods and goddesses against nebula backgrounds, entirely self-funded and uncompromised. His work stands as an alternative to the Era of Postmodern Banality, hopefully leading the way toward a new Age of Humanism in the arts.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

The Wave Series, Available As One Work

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.

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.

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.

Contact

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

Stephen Hicks on Michael Newberry

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

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