Doug Brega is a realist known for his realistic, evocative portraits and renderings of New England houses, sailboats and weather beaten barns. He paints not only what appears to his eye but also what he sees as a reality beneath the common one. For Brega the goal is more than an impressive accretion of detail: it is a glimpse of the true structure and character of his subject, whether it is a person or a building. Brega was born on Christmas day, 1948, in Springfield, Massachusetts and grew up in the neighboring town of East Longmeadow. His principal art studies took place at the Paier School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut under trompe l'oeil artist Ken Davies, who became his most important teacher and mentor. Davies impressed upon Brega the importance of drawing as a foundation for his work, at a time when this emphasis on realist technique was out of fashion. His other major influences are the American realists Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and especially Andrew Wyeth. His first major solo show in New York sold out; it was the first of many exhibitions that were to follow in Nantucket, Cape Cod, Washington D.C., and Jackson, Mississippi. Doug and his brother David Brega were honored with a joint retrospective exhibition, "Oil and Water," that traveled to the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, MA and the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Fine Art, Missouri. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City, Missouri; the Albrecht-Kemper Museum and in the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.