John Woods
THE CRATE LABEL SERIES The Crate Label Paintings are a celebration of the American Still Life tradition — 250 years running from Raphaelle Peale's porcelain through the trompe-l'oeil precision of Harnett and Peto, to the bakery and deli counters of Thiebaud, arriving here at a citrus crate and a Mason jar of tulips. I paint them at scale because they belong in the same lineage as the vase and tabletop still life before them: ordinary American objects worthy of sustained attention. Where the European tradition prized luxury and allegory, the American tradition found its subject in the vernacular. Each label is painted with the same optical discipline as the flowers above it. The tulips are soft and alive against the hard graphic geometry of the crate — that tension, organic against printed, is where the work lives. Two hundred fifty years of American still life, one square inch at a time.
John
Highlands Ranch, CO
John Woods
John Woods is a Denver-based still life painter working in oil and acrylic at monumental scale.
His large-format paintings of everyday objects draw on the 250-year-old American still life tradition — a tradition of elevating humble objects through obsessive optical precision, established by painters like Raphaelle Peale, William Harnett, and John Peto, and carried forward by contemporaries such as Wayne Thiebaud.
In his current series, which he calls the Crate Label Paintings, he features flowers in vintage American containers — vintage glass Ball jars, resting on fruit crates with uniquely American advertising labels.
His understanding of museum-level craft was shaped by growing up around one of the significant private collections of postwar American and contemporary art. Living alongside works by Calder, Cornell, Close, Frankenthaler, de Kooning, Pollock, Kandinsky, and Thiebaud gave him an early, hands-on understanding of craft, scale, and institutional standards.
He has maintained a dedicated painting practice for over three decades. His work is held in private collections, including families associated with major museum institutions such as the Denver Art Museum, and work formerly in the collection of Ginny Williams, one of contemporary art’s most influential collectors and advocates.
Woods’ work has been featured at the Coors Western Art Show and in publications including Southwest Art, Colorado Homes & Lifestyles, and Colorado Expression Magazine.
