Peter Arguimbau

Peter Layne Arguimbau is a contemporary artist who has painted in the Flemish tradition for over 40 years. These techniques come from a life time of experience recreating the Luminist tradition of the Dutch guilds in the Golden Age of painting.

Layne first learned to paint at age eight when he spent hours watching his father, Vincent Arguimbau, a portrait painter in his studio in Darien, Connecticut. Simultaneously with his art training, Arguimbau interned with restorer, Pierro Manonni, trained at the Instituto del Restauro in Rome under Cesere Brandi where for ten years they replicated painting mediums from 15th & 16th C manuscripts. After twenty years working with Maroger Medium with dastardly results of darkening and always tacky as a result of mastic, Arguimbau formulated his own gel medium using harder resins.

Layne now grinds his pigments from powders, makes his own panels using gesso grounds and lead grounds for canvas. Cooks his own oilly-resinous mediums with hard resins of amber, sandarac and colophony. Primarily using raw materials Layne has been able to maintain a consistent quality. Over his life time many paint materials have disappeared or changed dramatically; tube paints are thinned more and more using stablelizers and resonates for shelf life.

During the past 40 years, Layne Arguimbau has perfected his techniques and is now assembling his book. “The Invention of Oil Painting, a fresh look at the way painters painted from the Renaissance to the Present.” Like the work of the Flemish Masters, Layne Arguimbau’s paintings have an extreme quality of light that is timeless.