Contemporary realist-surrealist painter Samuel Rose died of cancer on February 18. He studied for 17 years with teacher-painter-historian R.H. Ives Gammell at Boston’s Fenway Studios and in Williamstown, and was considered a unique Boston School painter.

He also studied with Basil Kalashnifoff in Cleveland, Ohio; Henry Hensche and Robert Douglas Hunter at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Mass.; and at Kent State University.

Rose was a student of the Renassiance for more than 30 years and was highly influenced by the work of Raphael, Titian, Ingres and Maxfield Parrish (from whom he inherited sable brushes). He was a consummate draftsman whose brushwork was so intricate that it was hard to tell where one line began and another ended.

Rose was born and raised in Cleveland, the only child of Dorothy and Charles Rose (a carpenter and bricklayer). He began to draw at the age of 3 and left Ohio at 17 to enter Gammell’s Boston atelier. Rose painted day and night, attempting to perfect classical realism techniques. After a few years, he was considered a fine figure painter and an up-and-coming surrealist.

Rose’s awards include the National Academy of Design (Julius Hallgarten Prize, 1968), the National Arts Club. His memberships included The Copley Society, Boston; Salmagundi Club, New York City; and the Berkshire Art Association.

He is recognized for his realistic, witty, surrealistic subjects with skeletons, portraits, figure pieces, and still life subjects of fruit and dolls painted in multiple layers of oscillating colors that blend and soften into juxtaposing areas.