Marie Figge Wise was born in Davenport, Iowa and now splits her time between Texas and Colorado. From a young age, art has been a tremendous influence on Figge Wise’s life, cultivated at first by her family’s connection with Davenport’s Figge Art Museum, and later pursued through her studies at The Art Students League of New York, and through the studies of the studio arts and art history in Italy. Marie has studied with Joe Anna Arnett, Sherrie McGraw, Gregg Kreutz, Nancy Bush, JoeAnna Arnette and Michael Workman. After concentrating on painting still lifes, Wise ventured outside to paint in the Plein Air tradition. It was outdoors where she discovered her love of painting landscapes, as well as her deep passion for fly fishing. The huge vistas of farmlands near her hometown in the Midwest have inspired her work nearly as much the landscapes and rivers of Colorado, Montana, and Texas explored by this avid angler. The diffused, tonal quality in much of Figge Wise’s work makes her style recognizable. She often travels to paint and is constantly capturing references of the world around her to translate to canvas, often en plein air. Wise shows her technical and creative eye in her pet portrait series, capturing the personalities and looks of family pets, painted on commission. Marie Figge Wise lives with her husband, Bill Wise, sharing their time between Houston and Fredericksburg, Texas, and Aspen, Colorado.