Artist: Richard Wallich Subject: Animals Style: Contemporary Product Type: Gallery-Wrapped Canvas Art Made in USA This ready to hang, gallery-wrapped art piece features an Impressionist painting of a smiling Collie. From the time Chicago native Richard Wallich was nine years old, he knew he wanted to become a painter. He studied art in high school and at Eastern Illinois University. From there, he went to the American Academy of Art in Chicago and studied figure drawing. Wallich was attracted to impressionism by a desire to paint quickly and spontaneously, to immerse himself in the painting. It's a first impression--fast, quick, loose. Using dabs and swirls of paint, he creates a dazzling array of brightly colored images ranging from landscapes to figures to sports. In 1996, Richard was the official artist for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta and has since been commissioned by M&M Mars, American Airlines, Kodak, Coca Cola, NBC, and many others. Giclee (jee-clay) is an advanced printmaking process for creating high quality fine art reproductions. The attainable excellence that Giclee printmaking affords makes the reproduction virtually indistinguishable from the original piece. The result is wide acceptance of Giclee by galleries, museums, and private collectors. Gallery wrap is a method of stretching an artist's canvas so that the canvas wraps around the sides and is secured a hidden, wooden frame. This method of stretching and preparing a canvas allows for a frameless presentation of the finished painting.