Barbara Gurwitz
Barbara Ann Gurwitz (Gurwitz-Hall) attended Boston University for one year in theater department. Attended Katharine Gibbs for one (totally miserable) year in order to “be able to earn a living” as a secretary. This has enabled me to be competent in taking care of the business side of being an artist. Originally my work was influenced by the 1960’s artists in the Boston area and the impressionist work being brought into the Museum School as well as the work of Matisse, Picasso, Francoise Gilot, Modigliani and perhaps most, and finally, Van Gogh. I worked as a figurative artist. This continued, with some still life and interiors through the 70’s. In the 80’s I moved to Arizona and began a movement to landscape. This continued to evolve and my work was described as ‘fauvist, expressionist, magical realism’. In responding to the world around me I have found that it resonates to me in shapes and colors. This is what comes out in my work. As a studio painter, my work resulted from traveling and photographing places that captured my heart and my imagination. I would return to my studio and using the photographs fill sketchbooks with small pencil drawings from which I would make large oil paintings. Now, in my mid 80’s, after a period of working with geometric abstracts, I found myself looking through all the sketchbooks. My husband urged me to work with landscapes again. So I did and became fascinated with a new way of creating colorful impressions of the many places we traveled. I begin with small ink drawings on paper simplifying the drawings for smaller sized canvases. Next, using these ink drawings, I build up the courage to put the ink drawings onto the canvases. Then using acrylic paint along with the final details in ink I attempt to create bright and colorful paintings. Barbara has lived in Arizona since 1979.
