Dan McCole, a native of South Boston, Massachusetts, is a graduate of Vesper George School of Art, completing a full three-year course in fine arts and illustration. Early on, Dan chose watercolor as his preferred medium, or as he says, “Perhaps it chose me, for I seem to possess a scattered and wandering mind that adapted readily to the discipline of ‘frenzied restraint’ that so typifies a watercolor painter.” His main source of instruction at Vesper George was under the guidance of James Wingate Parr, a most accomplished painter and teacher in all media, and one who excelled in watercolor. After graduation, Dan entered the newspaper profession as a part-time editorial artist with the Boston Herald Traveler and in response to personal and family obligations, put his painting life on hold and morphed his way into a career as a newspaperman. He founded a weekly newspaper (the Weymouth News in Weymouth, Massachusetts) and served in all related capacities: publisher, editor, news reporter, photographer, ad sales, circulation delivery, bookkeeper, etc. After ten years he sold the Weymouth News but remained engaged in similar newspaper related enterprises with other local publications. He retired from the Boston Herald where he was employed as production news editor, late news deskman, as well as an occasional columnist and feature writer. During his newspaper career he was honored with a first place award for the Best Column in the New England Press Association’s annual newspaper competition. And is interesting to note that his former employer, The Boston Herald, purchased the Weymouth News, the paper he created back in the 1960s.

In the early 1990s, as his personal obligations lessened, Dan took a watercolor refresher course to force a re-entry into painting. He then entered his watercolors in local art shows, and was encouraged when his painting of a detail in the Boston Irish Famine Memorial Sculpture was awarded a ribbon in the annual South Shore Art Show. Kind reception and other ribbons in other shows convinced him to allocate more time to painting. Dan had his first one-man show in 1999 at the Crump Gallery in South Boston. He sold many of his originals and reproduction prints. Dan moved back to South Boston, the place of his birth, where his painting life slowly returned, completing a full circle. He is a co-founder and formerly served as president of the South Boston Arts Association.