Don Sahli is an American impressionist trained in the Russian school of painting. He was born in 1962 in Borger, Texas, a small town on the Texas panhandle. By the time he was seventeen, art galleries in Texas and New Mexico were selling his art.

Mr. Sahli began his formal art education at the University of Texas in Austin. A year later, he met Sergei Bongart, the famous Russian colorist. Don followed Bongart to California and became his last apprentice. Sahli remained with the Russian for three years, until Bongart's death in 1985.

Sahli's work contains stylistic echoes of the Russian impressionist masters. These echoes are particularly evident in the artist's uninhibited use of brilliant color and in his stern originality and unique vitality. Mr. Sahli helps to sustain an important artistic tradition, one passed from Ilya Repin, the fountainhead of all modern Russian painting, to his student, Nicolai Fechin; and from Fechin to Peter Kotov; and from Peter Kotov to Sergei Bongart; and from Sergei Bongart to Don Sahli.

Don Sahli has earned his living as a professional artist all his adult life. He is prolific, producing studio pieces-including numerous public works and corporate commissions- and innumerable sketches and plein air works each month. He has between 30 and 60 pieces on the market in galleries at any one time and regularly lectures, demonstrates, and teaches in galleries and other guest-artist venues. Don's work has won many awards and is represented by galleries in California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Texas.

In 1995, Don and Cindy founded the Sahli School of Art in Evergreen, Colorado, a village in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver. The school is housed in a barn built by Mr. Sahli to enclose two large adjoining studios, one for himself and one for students. He conducts weekly classes at the school throughout the year. In the summer, he offers plein air workshops in the mountains and meadows surrounding the school and in the Vail area of Colorado.

Don lives with his wife, Cindy, and their two sons, Jeffrey and Sam, in their mountain home near the school.