DEE BEARD DEAN has been painting all her life. Her work has become highly collectible throughout the United States. She studied art at Grand Rapids College, Kendall College of Art and Design, and the New York Academy of Art.  After marriage, she moved to the Florida Keys where she became a professional painter and passed the gift of painting to her son, John Beard, who is now a successful artist. Before gaining recognition as a portrait and landscape painter Dee was a well-known fashion designer manufacturing her own clothing line with a national label.
 
Dee is a passionate and prolific artist who has studied with many renowned artists and is nationally recognized for her painterly landscapes and her expertise in watercolors, oils and pastels. Her greatest inspirations have come from painting en plein air (or on location) where her eye for color and composition, and her elevated senses, guide her hand in creating paintings filled with evocative light and dramatic shadows.

She founded the Plein Air Painters of the Southeast (PAP-SE), a professional organization of acclaimed plein air artists living and working in the southeastern United States. She is a signature member of AIS (American Impressionist Society), a signature member of ASMA (American Society of Marine Artist), ELPA (Eastern League of Plein Air Painters), the Salmagundi Club, and many other organizations. Dee’s workshops are in great demand, offering painting instruction in this country and in beautiful locales around the world.

She is also well known for her portraits and has done numerous noteworthy commissions. Her work has received many awards at juried art competitions, and has been published in regional and national journals and she is represented in fine art galleries. She resides in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband, Dr. Nicolai Chalfa.  Her first book “Painter By Providence” is in publication.