n May John Pence Gallery in San Francisco presented recent oil paintings by two talented realists who work in a variety of genres. Dean Larson (b. 1957), a recipient of the prestigious John and Anna Lee Stacey National Competition, paints with a vibrant palette. His landscapes and cityscapes, sumptuous Spanish Baroque-style still lifes and haunting interiors are all characterized by sensitive explorations of light.

The haunting acrylic-on-linen landscapes of Maine artist Janice Anthony (b. 1946) were on view this spring in a solo show at Sherry French Gallery in New York City. The title of the exhibition, “Reflections,” could be taken metaphorically to describe the artist’s mediations on unpeopled woods and shorelines, but these carefully observed paintings also include reflections in a more literal sense.

The first thing you notice about William Nichols’s (b. 1942) oil-on-linen landscapes, which were on view this spring at O.K. Harris in New York City, was the way they combine physical scale with unexpected intimacy. Twin Logs Crossing (2005) is 63-by-83 inches, but it doesn’t have the epic sweep of the traditional American vista as epitomized by the works of Thomas Cole or Albert Bierstadt or Frederic Church. Instead, Nichols gives us close-up meditations on woodland interiors. As a boy growing up in the urban bustle of Chicago, Nichols found a summer haven in the north woods of upper Wisconsin, and a sense of memory—what he calls “intuitive recollections”—lingers around these images.