About Joseph Sweeney

Born in Philadelphia, Joseph Sweeney graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1976. He studied with and was influenced by: Isa Barnett, Sandy Ceaser, David Kettner, Boris Putterman, Gerry Herdman, Jack Andrews, Ray Spiller, Morris Schulman, Warren Rorher, David Fertig, Jane Piper, Sidney Goodman, and Lily Yeh. He received a Masters Degree in Printmaking from the Art and Architecture department of Penn State University in 1980. While there he studied with Bruce Shobaken, Diane Pepe and Peter Jogo. A resident of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, he has taught or is teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The University of the Arts, Wayne Art Center, Woodmere Art Museum, and Chester Springs Studio.

Primarily a landscape painter, he was awarded Best of Show at "Images '98" Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts July 1998 and Best of Show for The Philadelphia Watercolor Club 98th Anniversary International Exhibition of Works on Paper. In 2002 he was awarded the  Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Catherine Gibbons Granger Award for Landscape in Chester Springs, PA. Also in 2002 he was awarded Best in Show by The Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper and in 2010 took second place for the same show. In 2006 he took part in the Art in the Embassies Program in Washington D.C, in the Embassies of Port-of Spain, Trinidad & Kigali, Rwanda. In 2013 he was awarded a three month residency at The Master Works Museum in Paget, Bermuda 2017 residency at the Studios of Key West, FL. 2018, residency at the Rose Cottage, Vinalhaven, Maine. Recently awarded the Brandywine Conservancy Award (2019).