User:Arts.paint.crit/Susan Abbott, American Artist

Bold textSusan Abbott, American Artist is an American painter, living and working in Vermont (United States). Her work includes oil and watercolor still life, portraiture, and plein air composition.

Early Life and Education

Painter, Susan Abbott was born and grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, the daughter of progressive, politically active parents. Abbott's father, a lifelong political radical from New York, worked as a professional designer and painted throughout much of his life, influencing at an early age his daughter's interest in drawing and painting. Abbott began to paint in her early teens. At the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA) in(Baltimore), she received her bachelor of fine arts degree, summa cum laude, and two years later, received hermaster of fine arts degree from MICA. Abbott pursued post-graduate studies in printmaking at the University of Iowa under the renowned Mauricio Lasansky.

Career

Abbott's early work in oils appeared first in gallery and museum shows, beginning in the mid-1980s. Her work was regularly presented in solo exhibitions in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chicago in annual solo shows. Abbott's paintings and drawings work also have been included in group and solo exhibitions in New England, the Mid Atlantic states, the Pacific Northwest, and California. Abbott has traveled widely, painting in Europe, Mexico, Central american, Canada, the Caribbean, and throughout the United States. Abbott also is a highly respected teacher of painting, drawing, and design, working frequently in the United States, Canada, and Europe. For more than XX years, she has annually taught painting in France in the Provencal village of Les Bassacs. In recent years, she has added a series of regular painting and teaching visits to Paris.

Art

Author and art critic, the late Gerrit Henry described Abbott's painting as displaying an observant "modernism" and a "fine 20th century vanguardism, ... realist style". Henry found her painting "surreally ambiguous", marked by "figurative abstractions". Henry went on to describe Abbott's early work as displaying an "abiding respect for the now all-but-faded glories of Western culture" and a deep "romanticism of heart and aesthetic". Henry observed that Abbott's paintings exemplified an unwillingness to compromise the "existential integrity" of her artistic vision, melded with "obvious skill, dedication, and love".