The Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge has selected California impressionist painter Robert W. Jensen to receive their highest national special events award singling out his patriotic artwork as the reason for the jury's choice.

Aaron Siegel, the organization's president and CEO, expressed his congratulations as he notified Jensen on behalf of the board of directors of the Freedoms Foundation, which is a non-profit institution devoted to fostering an understanding of the freedoms enjoyed by the citizens of this country. Since its founding in 1949, it has provided thousands of scholarships and seminars, and annually sponsors youth conferences for both students and teachers at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania.

The award will presented to Jensen by Mrs. Marian Hope, president of the Los Angeles County Chapter of the Freedoms Foundation on October 23. It was the local chapter that called Jensen to the attention of the national awards program. Jensen has over the past several years provided artwork in the form of paintings, prints and drawings to be auctioned at local fund raising events, as well as providing art for invitations. The subjects have included the Fourth of July Parade in Pacific Palisades, When the Flag Passes By (a scene from the welcoming home parade in Hollywood after Desert Storm, and Flowers of Liberty, a work depicting a Rose Parade float that featured the Statue of Liberty with the American flag made of flowers. "It is certainly gratifying to be recognized for one's work, and this honor is particularly welcome at this time in our history," said Jensen.

Jensen is well known in Los Angeles charity circles, having provided art to many of them. One of the most popular items he has donated has been packages of note papers as favors at many fund raisers. The note papers feature reproductions of many of his paintings of scenes from all over the world. He has donated these to Los Angeles Beautiful Foundation, the Footlighters, Sonance, the Los Angeles Philanthropic Foundation, the National Arts Association, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

For the latter, he has also painted portraits of famed opera star, Marguerite Piazza, for their annual gala fund raising balls in Memphis, as well as donating another large painting (he included a limited edition lithograph and notepaper reproductions) of the Federal Express sponsored St. Jude's Golf Tournament, all used to raise money for the research hospital. His many activities for the St. Jude benefits earned him a position on their board of directors. One of the large portraits of Piazza now hangs in the lobby of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He has become a popular portrait painter of many of Memphis's most important people, as well as their children.

His other public service activities have included producing posters for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, a benefit program book and fund-raising scarf for the Los Angeles Zoo, a SHARE benefit program booklet, and many others. The National Arts Association has commissioned him for a number of years to paint portraits for presentation to their honorees, including the late actor Vincent Price; film company executive Roy Disney; the founder of The Friends of French Art, Mrs. E. Vanderlip of Palos Verdes; and a portrait of Joe D. and Etsuko Price, who generously donated the Japanese Pavilion to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1997, Disney asked him to be a judge for their annual World Festival of the Masters art competition at Disney World in Florida. He has, for the last three years, judged the the art work of students of the elementary and middle schools of Los Angeles entered in the Department of Water and Power's contest to promote awareness of energy conservation and the environment.

A portrait commission to paint Trojan Marching Band Director Arthur C. Bartner, commemorating his 20th anniversary at the University of Southern California, has led to a whole series of paintings on the band, as well as the production of a book celebrating the 25th anniversary in 1995. The original portrait was presented to Dr. Bartner in 1990, with nearly a thousand lithographs presented to the band's supporters. The book was introduced at a gala Silver Celebration at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and is now on sale through the University of Southern California book store. The series of paintings, drawings and watercolors were presented as an exhibition, The Band, at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Art Gallery at USC. His volunteer work resulted in a "Spirit of Troy" award for his generosity, service and dedication.

One of the paintings in The Band collection, titled Catalina Fourth, has been published by Jensen as a limited edition offset lithograph. The image includes both a U.S. Army and the University of Southern California marching bands, with crowds of children, some joining the parade on decorated bicycles, others just watching, a scene that took place on Catalina Island on the Fourth of July, but has certainly been repeated countless times in countless communities throughout this country over the past century with only minor modifications. He recently completed a sculpture of the Trojan drum major introduced at the band's annual concert in El Cerritos.

Jensen has always been open to experimentation. He won a Pacifica Award for his innovative work with the rotary silk screen process while working with his original fabric designs. The Hugo Dixon International Service Award was presented to him in Memphis in 1999 at a black-tie gala of the English Speaking Union. The Memphis Symphony Association presented another award to Jensen for his donation of a painting of the symphony in the park which was used for posters as a fund raiser. He has been honored with several one man exhibits in that city as well.

Jensen's premiere exhibition in Los Angeles was some thirty years ago at Galerie Marumo which was affiliated with the presitigious gallery of the same name on Rue de St. Honore in Paris. It was there that his work hung side by side with Renoir, Monet and Caillebotte and many great French impressionists. There have been numerous other one-man shows since then, including several at the Stephen Wise Temple Schools, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Redlands University, the United States International University in San Diego, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, the University of Southern California's Helen Lindhurst Fine Art Gallery. In a program of exhibitions at La Galerie at The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, Jensen presented paintings, drawings and prints of various parts of the world he has visited. The prestigious Regency Club atop the Rupert Murdoch building on Los Angeles' west side held a special showing of Jensen's work two years in a row. An exhibition at a gallery in Laguna Beach resulted in the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, acquiring one of Jensen's paintings, titled The Diamond Belt Weigh-In, for its permanent collection, which includes works by Audubon, Inness, Edward Hopper, John Marin, Ben Shahn, and Winslow Homer.

The Diamond Belt Weigh-In painting wss just one of 91 Jensen images reproduced in a book titled The Young Athlete that Jensen produced as an homage to young people and sports. Art for the Parks, an organization headquartered in the Grand Tetons, selected one of his paintings in 1988 as one of a hundred chosen from nearly 3000 entries for a touring exhibition. The painting depicted a scene in the local Santa Monica Mountains National Park, just five minutes from downtown Beverly Hills. That painting toured in 1988-89 to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis; the Neville Public Museum of Brown County in Green Bay, Wisconsin; the Rockwell Museum in Corning, New York; and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History in Jamestown, New York.

The Brooks Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Copley Library in La Jolla, California are two other institutions holding Jensen paintings in their collections. Jensen's works can be found in numerous private collections from coast to coast in this country, including the White House archive, and abroad in Japan, Kuwait, France and England.

Media response has been gratifying. Bonnie Churchill, the syndicated international radio and newspaper columnist, said 'Jensen's paintings capture a panorama of American life in action...he's a cross between Monet and Manet, but of our time, with an American heritage dating back to Daniel Boone." She was referring to the maternal side of Jensen's ancestors who were direct descendants of the famous frontiersman. Churchill was so impressed with his work that she collaborated on his book about sports, the already mentioned The Young Athlete, contributing stories about celebrities and their youthful experiences.

Designers West magazine called his exhibit, "...an opportunity to enjoy a light-filled moment for all time...the impressionist style lives on. Julie Jaskol, writing in the Los Angeles !ndependent, "In a Jensen painting, the landscapes...take on a lyrical lilt of turn-of-the-century Paris, or the countryside of southern France." Jennise Johnson, in the West Los Angeles College paper said, "At a time when art can take any form, no matter how ghastly or unnecessary, it's nice to know that someone is still producing work that won't leave you shocked, disgusted or indifferent." That same reviewer said of one of Jensen's paintings of the falls at Yosemite, "I could almost feel the fine mist on my face." She was referring to one of his National Park paintings, titled Bathers at the Falls. The painting was exhibited in a California Realists show at the Jolin Wayne Airport in Newport, and has since been sold to a private collector. When Horizon magazine was still being published, they compared Jensen's work to Matisse, Picasso and Whistler.

In addition to Horizon, Jensen has been the subject of numerous major feature stories in newspapers and magazines across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Santa Monica Outlook (which printed their weekend supplement cover in color reproducing one of Jensen's paintings), the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and the Christian Science Monitor.

Reilly Rhodes, who is a former museum director now managing and curating his own touring exhibition service, has said, "Jensen's way of looking at things tells us about the world we inhabit as a place of peace and beauty. His is a search for that lost space between what is real and what we dream and long for in our sometimes troubled lives. His work reminds us why art is important and why it should be considered as a wondrous event."