Afternoon light in Isle de Sol (Island of Sun), Brittany. Painting

Lena Murray is a founder and director of the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts in New York City, where Russian and Eastern European artists teach drawing, painting and sculpture in the classical tradition. While she founded the school she also studied there herself. Currently the majority of Bridgeview students are children and young adults. Lena lives in Maryland with her husband John Murray, also a painter and art professor at the Corcoran School of Art and Design in Washington DC. Lena paints primarily from observation. While she admires many traditions in fine arts her main influences are the artists of the Renaissance, French Impressionists and Russian 19th and 20th century artists. In her own work she is particularly drawn to color, mood and atmosphere regardless whether she is painting a person, still life or landscape.