Rita Wolpe Barnet, American 1920-1991, Modernist, Original Oil, Young Girl

Description: Rita Wolpe Barnett, American 1920-1991 ModernistHey, wait a minute, don't I know her? This beautiful oil painting of a young thoughtful girl projects a Déjà vu image, one of sweet memories and the innocent beauty of youth. Oil on Canvassigned lower leftArt: 18" x 26" Framed: 24 1/2" x 32 5/8" Rita Wolpe Barnett Kenin, was a lifelong Philadelphian artist whose soft, impressionistic oil paintings of ordinary people doing ordinary things graced local galleries for decades. Mrs. Kenin, the daughter of portrait photographer Caesar Wolpe, was taken with art from the time she was a toddler. Some of her drawings, illustrating a nursery story, were exhibited at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial in 1925, when she was still in kindergarten. She also was fascinated by people, and she dedicated much of her life to getting on canvas the interesting characters she met. She found them everywhere, said her niece, Beth Rose. "People at a 50th reunion or people going up and down stairs or two or three people on a bench and the relationship between them. That is what she did well." Mrs. Kenin, who signed her work Rita Barnett, also painted landscapes, but even the painting of Rittenhouse Square, which she depicted from her studio in her 10th-floor apartment overlooking the square, had tiny figures in it, her niece said. In a program for the 50-year retrospective of her work mounted by Tyler School of Art last year, the artist wrote, "The twist of a lip, the attitude of a head, created a mood I wanted to express. Then the relationship of two or more figures presented an even greater challenge. "For me, this has been and is a never-ending search of greater understanding, and an increasing and continuing love of painting." In her paintings, Mrs. Kenin captured her subjects in soft and muted pastel colors. One critic who reviewed a show she mounted at the Philadelphia Art Alliance observed that though her figures were familiar ones in familiar scenes, they seemed grim. No one smiled. "I think she saw the world as not happy happy happy," said her sister, Selma Cohen. "She saw the world as suffering and as ordinary." That's the way she painted it. Born in Philadelphia, she graduated from Gratz High School and attended Tyler School of Art at Temple University on a scholarship. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1942. She was only about 5 feet tall, but somehow looked bigger, said her niece. She had dark eyes and long black hair, which she wore the same way all her life: tied in a bun in back and cut in bangs across her forehead. "She was very aware," said Rose. "She saw the light and the colors and the way things moved. That fascinated her. "And she was always busy, doing crosswords, knitting, sewing, cooking. She was a wonderful cook and baker, always whipping stuff up and showing up with something. She was warm and smart and sharp." Solo Exhibition: Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia), 1968 Suzanne Gross Gallery (Philadelphia), 1980 and 1985 Tyler Alumni Gallery, Temple University (Philadelphia), 1989 Exhibitions: Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH) Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) National Academy of Design Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annuals Philadelphia Art Alliance Philadelphia Museum of Art Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia), 1968 Awards: First Prize, Tyler Alumni Show, 1949 Gold Medal, Philadelphia Sketch Club 1950 Mary Smith Award, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1951

Price: 410 USD

Location: Columbia, South Carolina

End Time: 2024-01-05T02:11:13.000Z

Shipping Cost: 40 USD