In a time when much of contemporary art remains confined within white walls and elite institutions, Don has forged an uncommon path, bringing classical realism directly into the public sphere. Known for his fearless social realism and painterly rigor, Don doesn’t merely create works for gallerygoers.
Instead, he deliberately positions his art to confront the public where they live, commute, and gather. From prominent museums to urban billboards, Don’s art bridges traditional oil painting with mass engagement, redefining what it means for realism to be relevant in the 21st century. His use of public art is not a marketing stunt but a strategic act of civic communication, an attempt to awaken conscience and reflection on a national scale.
A landmark example of this approach is Floyd (2020), Don’s powerful response to the killing of George Floyd. Unlike many politically engaged artworks that remain hidden within institutional walls, Floyd was disseminated across the United States on large-scale billboards, including a notable placement in Times Square.
With Renaissance-inspired precision and gut-wrenching emotion, the painting immortalized a defining moment in American history, combining the compositional discipline of Caravaggio with the urgency of social protest. The image’s placement in a public setting was intentional: by bypassing the gatekeepers of high culture, Don ensured that his message of outrage and solidarity reached a broad, diverse audience.
For many passersby, the billboard was a confrontation they could not ignore, a work of visual journalism rendered in oil and laid bare against the skyline. Over the course of his career, he has exhibited at many of the country’s most prestigious venues, including the Whitney Museum, the National Academy of Design, the Queens Museum, the Heckscher Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
These exhibitions have showcased the range of his work, from intimate portraits to sweeping allegorical scenes, always grounded in narrative and crafted technique. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Don has never distanced himself from the intellectual traditions of painting.
Don received his training at several of the most esteemed institutions in American art education. He studied anatomy and classical drawing under Robert Beverly Hale at The Art Students League in New York, where the precision and discipline of traditional figure work became central to his approach. He was a longtime assistant to Alfred Leslie, one of the central movers in the revival of Realism.
Raphael Soyer successfully sponsored him at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the Rosenthal award for achievement for a younger artist. Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture asked him back twice to teach and give lectures on his work. He has lectured on his work at Columbia University, the Kansas City Art Museum, Amherst College, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Time Capsule films created a film on Don, narrated by F. Murray Abraham, in which art critics such as Charlie Finch, Gerry Haggerty, and Gerit Henry praised his work. Don further deepened his painterly language at The School of Visual Arts, working closely with abstract expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart, whose philosophical approach to form and spirit left a lasting imprint.
Don attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where his engagement with realism found a collaborative and critically rigorous environment. His paintings have also found a permanent home in several major institutional collections. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Colby Museum of Art are just a few of the cultural landmarks that have acquired his work.
His inclusion in these collections validates his approach, melding classical draftsmanship with urgent content and outlining his importance as a chronicler of the American experience. However, his refusal to see a divide between the museum and the street sets Don apart from many of his peers.
For him, the practice of realism is inherently democratic. His subjects, urban violence, racial injustice, homelessness, and interracial love, are drawn from the daily realities of life in New York City and beyond. He paints what others overlook or avoid. But he also elevates these realities, using traditional techniques to grant them the dignity of myth, history, and drama.
In doing so, he transforms everyday struggle into something monumental. Whether seen in a hushed gallery or a bustling intersection, his work retains its narrative clarity and ethical charge. This dual presence within elite cultural institutions and the mass public view makes Don a one-of-a-kind artist.
His billboard campaigns, particularly during the George Floyd protests, invited polarized reactions. Some hailed them as necessary interventions in a moment of national reckoning; others criticized them as too raw or confrontational for public consumption. But such debate is precisely what Don seeks.
As the 2025–2026 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program residency recipient, Don continues to expand the scope and scale of his engagement. Whether teaching young artists, exhibiting in major museums, or speaking to the public through unexpected platforms, his mission remains to restore painting as a mode of social awareness and spiritual reckoning.
In an era of fleeting attention spans and fragmented discourse, Don’s realism commands focus. His paintings demand to be seen, felt, and faced. From the polished halls of academia to the noise of city streets, he has built a bridge between the canon and the contemporary, between the private canvas and the public square.
