Timothy David Mayhew is a realist and impressionist artist from the "Four Corners" area of the desert southwest, where New Mexico touches Arizona, Utah and Colorado. His undergraduate studies were done at the University of Michigan, and he furthered his education at Wayne State University where he received his Doctorate in 1978.

Mayhew has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which has led him to pursue advanced research in 14th to 17th Century Northern European fine art materials and techniques at the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Mayhew’s studies at the National Gallery of Art eventually led to his association with the renowned Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in 1996. There, he has been working with the curators and conservators doing research on medieval and early renaissance drawing materials and techniques. This work includes the techniques of silverpoint, goldpoint, bronzepoint, copperpoint, tinpoint, leadpoint and many other metalpoint drawing styli authentically based on classical, medieval and renaissance alloy formulations.

Of special note, over the past several years, both the Boston Museum of Fine Art and Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum have acquired numerous drawings done by Mayhew, which are now housed as part of their permanent collection of drawings by old master artists.

To complement his research, Mayhew has sought out, and studied with, some of the finest contemporary masters of art. He studied with renowned animal painter, Bob Kuhn, to learn how to depict animals in their natural environment. He studied en plein air landscape painting techniques from Clyde Aspevig and Matt Smith, and he learned how to use color from colorists Tom Darro and Stephen Quiller. In addition to this important training, he is also an alumnus of the prestigious Scottsdale Artists School.

Mayhew has worked very hard over the years to develop a distinctive technique for his oil paintings, and they are sought after by serious art collectors. His studio oil painting style is based on the result of his many years of research on 14th to 17th Century Northern European painting techniques used in the era of Jan van Eyck, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn. It is a very complex style of painting, resulting in an incredible depth of color from the complex interplay of layers of translucent and semi-opaque layers of oil paint laid down using specially prepared painting mediums. This complicated technique requires pains-taking effort, but the result it yields is well worth it.

Mayhew has adapted the complex 14th to 17th Century Northern European oil painting style, usually used for portraits, to the depiction of birds and other wildlife. His working methods include meticulous research to learn as much as possible about the subject. Mayhew starts with direct observation with drawings and sketches of live specimens in order to understand how they move, what their interactions are, their individual personalities, and how they carry themselves.

To balance this difficult and labor intensive style of painting, Mayhew finds it very important to get out of the studio to create en plein air landscape paintings as a way of studying nature firsthand and to learn the nuances of the environments. These en plein air paintings function as composition and color notes for his studio works, and stand on their own as finished works of art.

Mayhew has been invited to exhibit his artwork in numerous important national exhibitions including the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Thomas Gilcrease Museum, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, the Settlers West Miniature Exhibition, the Art of the Animal Kingdom, and many others. He regularly receives many awards and honors for his artwork, including several Best of Show and Best Oil awards.

In addition, Mayhew ’s artwork and his research have resulted in several scholarly books, papers and publications on old master drawing materials and techniques. He is frequently invited to give presentations to the curators and conservators at prestigious national museums including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Straus Center for Conservation.

Mayhew's artwork can be found housed in the permanent collections of numerous major museums including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Fogg Art Museum, the University of New Mexico Museum of Fine Art, the Tamarind Institute and many others.