Collection: Christopher Leith Evans

Christopher Leith Evans’s painterly skill and keen powers of observation not only capture specific places and moments of time in the landscape but communicate an intimate spiritual experience flowing from his reverence for the beauty and mystery of nature.

Christopher was born in 1954 in the Bremerton, Washington Navy hospital. He was raised in New York, graduating from Bay Shore High School in 1972. He received his B.A. (1977) and Master of Fine Arts (1980) from UCLA where he studied with David Hockney. His graduate work was featured in the city-wide invitational L.A. Seen by L.A. Artists exhibition.

For ten years, Christopher worked at George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County as a special visual effects matte artist, learning to paint first on glass, then later on a computer, to help create memorable scenes in feature films such as E.T., Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones. He received an Oscar nomination for his work on Willow. He is also an Emmy award winner.

In 2001 Evans spent several years back in New York to focus solely on his career as a fine artist. In 2002, his spherical view from the South Tower of the World Trade Center, New York in the Light of Memory, was part of the History Responds show at the New York Historical Society, and received a glowing review from the New York Times Art Critic Roberta Smith; she called the piece “exhilarating.” Five solo shows in New York followed, including three at the Fischbach Gallery. 

Christopher Leith Evans has lived in Sonoma County since 1990, and is deeply inspired by its landscape. He was the Pepperwood Preserve’s Artist in Residence in 2017, which culminated in a sold-out exhibition of his landscapes.