Title
Untitled
Object Type
Creator
Date
c. 1990
Notes
The paintings of Rita Rogers are truly expressionist. They reflect an artist’s inner vision and emotional responses: color assaults color, forms spiral or soar across the canvas; the paint itself takes on an elemental force; tension is often present. Like life itself, Rogers’ paintings are neither precise nor ordered. She does not tell a story with her oeuvre: no chronology, few series. From the diptych of 1981 to her latest work entitled Thickets, presented here in the corridor, Rogers says that her paintings are often “the embodiment of a sensation.” Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, haunting images of flames or ladders or suggestions of organic forms emerge from the recesses of Rogers’ paintings. These are unquestioningly personal works, but accessible to others through the artist’s mastery of manipulated paint, vivid color and evocative associations.
Rita Rogers grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA from Bard College and did graduate work in contemporary literature at Columbia University. Always drawing and painting as a child, during the 1950s Rogers began studying at the Art Students League and Yale Norfolk Art School. Over the course of her career, Rogers has received painting fellowships from Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs, New York; the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. She has been the recipient of grants from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and has exhibited extensively in Rhode Island, as well as in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Rogers’ teaching career includes positions at several venues, in particular Portsmouth Abbey, where she taught painting and printmaking for sixteen years. She is also an established painting restorer, with talents in faux finishes and trompe l’oeil; many of her treated paintings hang in buildings owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County, and other local institutions. Rita Rogers has resided in The Point section of Newport since 1986.
Rita Rogers grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA from Bard College and did graduate work in contemporary literature at Columbia University. Always drawing and painting as a child, during the 1950s Rogers began studying at the Art Students League and Yale Norfolk Art School. Over the course of her career, Rogers has received painting fellowships from Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs, New York; the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. She has been the recipient of grants from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and has exhibited extensively in Rhode Island, as well as in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Rogers’ teaching career includes positions at several venues, in particular Portsmouth Abbey, where she taught painting and printmaking for sixteen years. She is also an established painting restorer, with talents in faux finishes and trompe l’oeil; many of her treated paintings hang in buildings owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County, and other local institutions. Rita Rogers has resided in The Point section of Newport since 1986.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Extent
frame: 60 1/2 in x 46 1/2 in
Source
Gift of Amy Weintraub
Identifier
1994.004.001
For more information about this item, please contact its owning institution.