Growing up along the shores of Lake Michigan and wandering the woods and fields of his native Wisconsin gave Bill Gallen an early appreciation for the wonders of the natural world. Gallen graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in history and German and spent a year studying in Freiburg, Germany. Plans to pursue an academic teaching career gave way when he moved to Colorado and began a painting contracting business with his brother. Nurturing a lifelong interest in art, Gallen studied painting and drawing in his free time with local instructors as well as at workshops in Taos, New Mexico, and the Scottsdale Artists School. He counts Michael Lynch, David Ballew and Ned Jacob among his most influential teachers.

Bill Gallen currently resides in New Mexico where he enjoys painting landscapes, particularly location pieces. The eye for beauty and harmony in nature which he developed as a child in the Midwest informs his work with freshness and sensitivity. Gallen’s paintings are included in private, corporate and museum collections nationwide.

The Bettina Steinke Studio in Santa Fe is the historic setting where a continuation of a lineage of painters is made possible, starting with renowned portrait and landscape painter, Bettina Steinke, (1913-1999) descending through her student, the great draftsman and painter Ned Jacob and carried to us today by the painters, Michael J. Lynch and David Ballew.

Paul Van Munching, an accomplished draftsman and painter in his own right, is the benefactor who makes this possible.