"Everybody looks for a label. I would like to be known as a painter - one who painted what he saw while wandering around on his journey."

Don Sahli made the decision to become a professional artist at a very early age. By the time he was 17 years old, art galleries in Texas and New Mexico were selling his paintings. He began his formal art education at the University of Texas in Austin. A year later, he met Sergei Bongart, the famous Russian colorist. At Bongart's invitation, Sahli followed him to California and became his last apprentice. He remained with the Russian for three years, until Bongart's death in 1985. Sahli has earned his living as a professional artist and teacher all his adult life.

Don Sahli strives to continually expand his horizons, push the limits; presenting and creating his work in ways that are unexpected, fresh and stimulating. He takes these boundaries and uses them as the jumping off point: the start of something, not the end. Sahli's work contains stylistic echoes of the Russian masters, particularly evident in his uninhibited use of color, his stern originality and unique vitality.

"When I look at a painting, I want it to bring me back to when I was on the scene. I want it to convey the drama and emotion that first captured my attention - the atmosphere and the soul of the place."

In 1995, Sahli founded the Sahli School of Art in Evergreen, Colorado, where in winter and spring, he conducts studio and garden workshops. Summer and fall, plein air workshops are held in the majestic mountains of Colorado and other scenic venues he has discovered through years of searching. Sahli lives with his wife, Cindy, and their two sons; Jeff and Sam, in their mountain home in Evergreen.