The National Museum of Women in the Arts Honors Painter Susan Swartz

Written by Alexander McQuistan Wednesday, 10 August 2011 21:03

Washington, D.C.- The National Museum of Women in the Arts honors painter Susan Swartz with a special exhibition "Susan Swartz: Seasons of the Soul" on view at the museum until October 2nd. Known as much for her environmental activism and philanthropy, the multi-award winning abstract expressionist painter Susan Swartz displays the boldest, riskiest work of her career to sound an alarm about protecting our planet’s scarce natural resources. Passionate about the environment, and eager to use her art and resources to sound an alarm about the fragility of the planet we inhabit, Susan Swartz is known for the emotional and lyrical beauty of the landscapes she paints using bold strokes of color that inspire a visceral response in viewers.

Her remarkably potent abstract paintings have captured the attention of both museums and collectors, and prompted them to take environmental concerns more seriously.  Susan Swartz says there’s an underlying narrative to her work now: “An urgent plea to notice, respect and preserve our natural environment.” Dr. Susan Fisher Sterling, Director, National Museum of Women in the Arts says, “Pulsating with dazzling color, Susan Swartz’s abstract landscapes simultaneously articulate her awe of the natural world and her rallying cry for its preservation. A staunch environmentalist, philanthropist, and producer of award-winning documentaries, Susan has turned to her art as a source of healing, resilience, and inspiration throughout her battle with environmentally-bred illnesses.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is delighted to showcase her work in a special exhibition this summer.” Diagnosed first with mercury poisoning and then with Lyme Disease, Susan Swartz struggled with these life-threatening, chronic illnesses in the past decade. She says, “My paintings changed when I became ill. I was forced out of my comfort zone as an artist, forced to become bolder and riskier in my work. The art I am now creating is more impassioned, more profound, and more achingly full of desire than anything I have created in the past. While I have always enjoyed painting the divine beauty of nature, my two illnesses have had a profound effect on me, and my work. During my slow recovery, I gained a deeper reverence for all that God created and felt inspired – charged, really – to do all I could to protect the environment in its most pristine form.”

A classically trained painter from a family of artists and musicians, Susan Swartz has been working as a professional artist for most of her adult life from homes in Park City, Utah and Martha’s Vineyard. Susan Swartz says, “I first got to know the National Museum of Women in the Arts shortly after it opened twenty-four years ago. On that first visit, I remember thinking ‘maybe someday my work will be here…’ It’s an incredible privilege now to have my paintings at what is really the first place dedicated to promoting and honoring women artists. Billie Holladay and NMWA were really the pioneers in giving equal footing to women artists. Such profound institutional support allows us to dream and inspires us to persevere.” Susan Swartz paintings are in private and corporate collections in the US, the UK and Japan.  She was featured as the 2002 Winter Olympic’s Environmental Artist and her works are in museum collections at the Salt Lake City Olympic Museum; U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame & Museum; the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Springfield Museum of Art in Utah. Together with Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, H.L.A. Culmer and Maynard Dixon, Susan Swartz is included in the book “Painters of the Wasatch Mountains .”

Susan Swartz also published the book “Natural Revelations: The Art of Susan Swartz” which was awarded a bronze medal at the 12th Annual Independent Book Publisher Awards. John E. Buchanan, Jr., Director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco says, “The paintings of Susan Swartz are about beauty, balance and harmony.  As with many successful authors, Susan succeeds at painting what she knows best, and in a manner similar to that by which she conducts her life.  It would be difficult to separate the painting from the painter in her particular case. It would also be deceptive to label Susan strictly as a landscape artist.  Yes, her work may well be seen as the contemporary continuum of that tradition that emerged in many countries, cultures and from early times forward.  Yet, Susan’s paintings may be more aptly likened to “landscapes of the mind,” influenced as much by the imagination as by an actual site.  Like the work of Odilon Redon, Susan’s landscape compositions are so intensely and personally rendered that they convey a distinct sense of place, if not of this earth, then of the terrain of the artist’s mind.  She thusly conveys a soul to images that might often appear vacuous to us as viewers.  Susan’s technique is virtuosic on the laying in of color and glazes as she builds up her canvases.  Although richly painted, less is often more in her most successful compositions.  Their unique voice speaks through her ability to imbue them with her personal experiences and beliefs regarding faith, health and environment.”

The National Museum of Women in the Arts brings recognition to the achievements of women artists of all periods and nationalities by exhibiting, preserving, acquiring, and researching art by women and by teaching the public about their accomplishments.  To fulfill its mission, the museum cares for and displays a permanent collection, presents special exhibitions, conducts education programs, maintains a Library and Research Center, publishes a quarterly magazine and books on women artists, and supports a network of state and international committees.  NMWA also serves as a center for the performing and literary arts and other creative disciplines. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 as a private, non-profit museum.  Its inspiration came from the personal collection of Wilhelmina Cole Holladay and Wallace F. Holladay, who began collecting art in the 1960s, just as scholars and art historians were beginning to discuss the under-representation of women and various racial and ethnic groups in museum collections and major art exhibitions.  Mrs. Holladay devoted her energies and resources to creating a museum that would showcase women artists and the Holladay collection became the core of the institution’s permanent collection. The permanent collection comprised of more than 3,000 works provides a comprehensive survey of art by women from the 16th century to the present, with new acquisitions added regularly. The work in the collection represents a wide range of styles and media — from the Renaissance paintings of Elisabetta Sirani to modern photographs by Barbara Morgan to Louise Nevelson's contemporary sculptures. NMWA also has several important special collections, including silver by 18th and 19th-century Irish and English women silversmiths. Visit the museum's website at ... www.nmwa.org

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