There is a particular stillness that settles over a marsh in the last hour of daylight: the wind drops, the temperature falls with the sun, and the world holds its breath for the birds about to arrive. Ben Bauer has spent his life inside that hour, and Field Notes is his invitation to share it.

Raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bauer learned the seasons tramping through cattails on family duck-hunting trips long before he picked up a brush. He placed first in his age group in the Minnesota Junior Duck Stamp competition as a teenager and went on to study painting at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. Today he describes his work simply as “recording a natural history”: real marshes, fields, and creek bends in the Upper Midwest, painted with the urgency of someone who has watched open land disappear. In this most recent body of works, if land is his subject, birds are its pulse. Sandhill cranes cross a sky the color of a struck match, and trumpeter swans are shown mid-conversation on winter water.

This exhibition is dedicated to Howard. Ben has called Howard the most influential person of his career, the dealer and mentor who helped make his life as a painter possible. Showing this body of work in his honor, in the gallery Howard built, means a great deal to all of us.

This November marks one year without Dad. It has been the hardest year of our lives to navigate, both personally and professionally. But through it all, the art we surround ourselves with has proven immensely therapeutic. So this month, we are happy to get lost in Ben’s paintings and the peace, serenity, and calm they bring; a feeling many of you know well from living with his work yourselves.