Lorna Ritz Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1947 -

My ideas come from my imagination in a completely improvisational, passionate way. I love to see open, breathing, moving space create entry ways deep into the picture plane on the flat surface of linen. I compose with ‘chords of notes,’ as in ‘lines in jazz,’ through color. My paintings ‘sing’ through the light that emanates from the color combinations themselves. I ‘listen’ to how the paint wants to move. The horizon gives prelude to what is beyond landscape in the paintings, (thus, the abstraction), as I want ‘to push it there,’ beyond what the eye sees as gravity/sky landscape. I am developing the tradition coming out of cubism and then Hofmann’s plastic space.

–LR




I studied w/ Gabriel Laderman and Lennart Anderson in the 60’s. I received a BFA from Pratt Institute, changing the course of my painting life into pure abstraction, under the instruction of painter James Gahagan, (a student of Hans Hofmann), who was a very important teacher for me in the 60’s. I received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1971, in both painting and sculpture, (welding steel, and casting in bronze and iron). I welded steel for 25 years, and cast in bronze and iron.
Teaching positions: R.I. School of Design, Brown University, University of Minnesota, and Dartmouth College in the 70’s and 80’s. I have been a “Visiting Guest Critic” at the Vermont Studio Center since 1991-2013. I taught several ‘Drawing Marathons’ at the New York Studio School, & University of Massachusetts 1987-95.

Residencies:
The Community Residency,‘C-Scape Dune Shacks,’Provincetown, Massachusetts 2013, International Residency Program, through the Augusta Savage Gallery at University of Massachusetts, Cape Town, South Africa 2007, Helen Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico 2006, Arcadia National Park, “Artist-in-Residence”; Maine 2000, Fundacíon Valparaíso, Spain; painting residency, 1999, Vermont Council on the Arts, “Artist-in-Residence” Grant Award, 1981-83, Fellowship to Ossabaw Island Project, Georgia, 1978, Artist-in-Residence Grant to the Roswell Museum Art Center, New Mexico, 1975, Fellowship to MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire, 1972 & 1976.

Lectures:
Instituto de Belles Artes, (Medellin, Colombia); American University, (D.C. and in Italy); Humboldt State University, (CA); The New York Studio School, and the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, (France). I have traveled through the U.S. Information Agency to Malta and Honduras to teach at respective universities, and my paintings have been exhibited through the Art-in-Embassies Program in D.C. in Africa, Guatemala, and Caracas; & the Divinity Center at Yale University, the Bowery Gallery in NYC, Hillyer Gallery at Smith College, the Fine Arts Center’s ‘The Contemporary Art Museum” at the University of Massachusetts; the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, and the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown, MA.

Recent Group exhibitions:
“The Painting Center,” NYC, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, The Washington Art Association in Washington Depot, CT., Oxbow Gallery ‘The Creative Center’ in Chelsea, NYC, Julian Scott Memorial Gallery of Johnson State College, Vermont, American Embassy in Caracas, Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA., Edward Hopped House Museum, Nyack, New York, and 2017 Hannah Bacol Busch Gallery, Belaire, Texas

Recent solo shows:
Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, The State House, Boston, (in Senator Rosenberg’s Office), Aidron Duckworth Art Museum, Meriden, NH., French Cultural Center, Boston, MA.

Grants:
Artists’ Fellowship, New York City, The Artist’s Resource Trust, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, The Haven Foundation, Maine, George Sugarman Foundation Grant Award, Puffin Foundation, New Jersey, The Kittredge Fund Grant, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 2 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Award, New York City, Esther & Adolph Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Grant Award, New York City, Ludwig Vogelstein Grant Award, New York City, Salmagundi Artists’ Fellowships, New York City, U.S. Information Agency Grant Award, Vermont, Partners of the Americas, to paint, exhibit, travel, lecture, and teach at the University; Honduras, 6 weeks, 1983, Blanche E. Colman Grant Award, Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Bank, Boston, and a Partial Scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1968.

Public Collections:
University of Michigan Museum of Contemporary Art, Hale and Dorr Law Firm, (Boston), Bank of Boston, Johnson and Johnson, (N.J.), Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, (N.M.), the Burnham Institute, (CA.), and Veridex, (NJ), The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, The Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Childrens’ Hospital, Boston, Nataxix Global Asset Management, Boston, Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, Audax Group, Boston, Thompson Financial Management, Northampton, MA., United Health Group Corporate Headquarters, Minnetonka, Minnesota, McLean Hospital @ Harvard Medical School, Ipsen Pharmaceutical Company, Cambridge, MA.