Commissions & Large-Scale Work
Commissioned landscapes, painted to your wall.
Original oils built for hospitality suites, executive rooms, and dining spaces — sized up to six feet, painted on location in the Eastern Sierra, finished in the Bishop studio, and delivered crated and insured to your site.
Request a Commission →
Convict Lake, late light — 60″ × 40″, oil on linen, commissioned for a private dining room, Lake Tahoe, 2024.
The kinds of rooms
Three kinds of rooms Alex has been asked to paint for.
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01
Boutique hospitality
Lobby anchors, signature suites, and resort corridors. Recent installations include a permanent commission for the Mammoth Mountain Inn and a series of three Eastern Sierra panels for a wine-country inn outside Sonoma. Work is built to read across a room and survive ten years of daylight.
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02
Corporate & executive
Boardrooms, executive suites, partner offices, and law-firm reception walls. The work holds its weight in quiet rooms — tonal, considered, and free of the brand-color collisions that make commissioned art look like signage. Pieces ship crated, insured, and ready to hang.
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03
Fine-dining & private clubs
Restaurants, tasting rooms, and member dining rooms where a painting has to behave at candle distance. Alex keeps the palette restrained and the brushwork controlled in these pieces — the goal is an atmosphere, not a postcard. Existing restaurant clients include three Northern California kitchens with work installed since 2019.
The work, in order
How a commission is built, from first conversation to delivery.
A commission is a slow conversation. The steps below are the same every time — what changes is the site, the season, and the light Alex goes out to find.
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Chapter I
Brief & site
You send room dimensions, wall photographs, light direction, and any reference for the feeling you want — calm, weighty, luminous, particular. Alex replies within five business days with a written read of the brief, a target scale, and a quote range. There is no fee for this first exchange.
Typical duration: 1 – 2 weeks
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Chapter II
Location study
Alex travels to the agreed Eastern Sierra location and paints a small plein-air study on panel — usually 9″ × 12″, completed in two to four sessions on site. The study fixes the composition, palette, and light. You receive photographs and a high-resolution scan before any canvas is started.
Typical duration: 3 – 6 weeks, weather-dependent
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Chapter III
Canvas execution
The final canvas is built in the Bishop studio, sized and stretched by hand on site. Working time averages 40 – 80 hours per painting. Alex sends two progress updates — at the block-in and at the final lay-in — so you can ask for adjustments before the painting is signed and varnished.
Typical duration: 8 – 14 weeks
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Chapter IV
Delivery & install
Finished canvases are professionally crated in custom-built wood crates, insured for the full value, and shipped worldwide. U.S. deliveries average 14 business days from the Bishop studio. Installation hardware and a condition report are included with every piece.
Typical duration: 2 – 3 weeks shipping
Scale & capacity
What the studio can paint, and why it does the work itself.
The Bishop studio is a 1,400-square-foot converted barn with a north-facing wall tall enough to stage a six-foot canvas upright and read it at full distance. Linen is sized and stretched by hand on site. Frames are built in-house for anything over 36 inches.
Alex paints every commissioned canvas himself. The work is not delegated to assistants, and no element of the painting is fabricated from photography — the composition is established in the field and resolved in the studio from the plein-air study. This is the discipline of the Eastern Sierra tradition he was trained in, and the reason a 72-inch original can hold its quiet at arm's length.
Practicalities
What buyers usually ask before commissioning a landscape.
How far in advance should we reach out?
For a single canvas in the 40 – 60 inch range, three months of lead time is comfortable. For a six-foot diptych or a matched series, plan on six to eight months. The studio releases no more than 22 original oils a year, and the calendar fills in the order briefs arrive — not in the order they are quoted.
How is the commission priced, and what is the deposit structure?
Pricing is set by scale, complexity of the location work, and number of canvases. Quotes are written and itemized. A 40% deposit secures the calendar slot once the location study is approved; the balance is due in two payments — at canvas completion and at crating. Quotes are honored for sixty days.
Can the composition be revised if the room does not suit the first version?
One compositional revision at the block-in stage is included. The location study is the moment to settle the direction — if a second field study is needed because the brief has changed materially, it is billed at cost. After the canvas is past the lay-in stage, the painting is finished as a single resolution.
How are oversized works shipped, and do you handle installation?
Everything over 36 inches is crated in a custom wood crate built in the Bishop studio, insured for the full purchase value, and shipped via a fine-art carrier. U.S. delivery averages 14 business days. Crates include installation hardware, a written condition report, and care instructions. On-site installation can be coordinated through the carrier for an additional fee, or your facilities team can install from the included hardware kit.
What are the reproduction rights for a commissioned piece?
The collector owns the original canvas and the right to display it. Alex retains the right to reproduce the image for his own archive, for catalogue purposes, and for limited-edition giclée print runs. Exclusive reproduction — for brand or hospitality use where no print or digital reproduction of the image may ever be made — is available as a written addendum and is quoted separately.
Request a Commission
A short note is enough to start.
Tell Alex about the room, the wall, and the feeling you want the painting to carry. You will hear back within five business days with a written read of the brief and a quote range. There is no fee for the first exchange.