Paul Rodolph Arsenault

Born in Montreal, internationally known landscape painter Paul Arsenault was raised in Hingham, Massachussetts where his love for the sea and travel emerged. Following his graduation from the Art Institute of Boston in 1973, he embarked on a 6 month stint as a deckhand aboard the RV Gosnold, which brought him to Florida from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The research mission was to establish a baseline of marine life and to collect samples from the Gulf Stream to the Indian River Lagoon for the Smithsonian Lab at Harbor Branch Institute at Fort Pierce. 

He moved to Naples in 1974 and devoted his energy to honing his skill as a plein air painter with a maritime bent. Embracing the natural beauty of his newly adopted home, he particularly focused on painting beaches, harbors and waterways. Early in his career, Paul embarked on painting trips from south Florida to the Caribbean and Central and South America.  Over the years, as his professional painting career developed, his travels expanded to include Asia, the South Pacific, Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, the Middle East and Europe. These adventures are beautifully chronicled in  “My Journey as a Painter”,  now in its second printing. Over the 47 years he has been based in Naples, his dedication to painting the landscape has helped preserve, at least on canvas and sometimes in reality, the natural and architectural gems of his adopted home.

Along with travel, annual fundraising shows have been a hallmark of his career and since l983, these have benefited a variety of non-profit organizations devoted to health, humanity, environmental protection, and historic preservation, including Doctors without Borders, Audubon of the Western Everglades, Indian River Land Trust, Southwest Florida Land Preservation Trust, Hope for Haiti, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Nantucket Land Council, Amazon Conservation Team, and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.