Daniel Graves

Daniel Graves was born in 1949 in Rochester, New York. He graduated from the Maryland Art Institute in 1972 where he studied with Joseph Shepard and Frank Russell. Graves continued his studies with Richard Serrin at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Art in Florence, Italy. 

Following a course of training with Richard Lack in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he taught at the Atelier Lack Studio of Fine Art. 

In the late 1970s, Graves returned to Florence and undertook individual study with Nerina Simi who maintained a classical nineteenth-century studio. Ms. Simi was the daughter of the Florentine painter Filadelfo Simi who had studied with Jean-Leon Gerome, the head of the French Academy in Paris in the 1870s. With such a rich background of training, Graves has created a style of oil painting that blends the Florentine tradition of Simi and the master classical realist Piero Annigoni with the draftsmanship of the French artist Charles Bargue’s Cours des Dessins and Academie Julien. 

Graves painted a large number of self-portraits with beret.