Late Art Faculty Member's Painting on Exhibit in New York City

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Neppie Conner with one of her paintings, circa 1947 (Image courtesy of University of Arkansas Special Collections)

Neppie Conner taught art at the University of Arkansas from 1946 until she retired in 1984. She also created a great deal of art herself during that period, and was a founding artist of one of the first “cooperative” art galleries in the United States, the Green Mountain Gallery in New York City. The gallery is now called “Blue Mountain Gallery” and they are celebrating their 30th anniversary this month with a special exhibition honoring all of their affiliated artists, including Conner.

Before Neppie Conner died in January 2006 she donated an extensive collection of her paintings and drawings to the University of Arkansas department of art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. One of her watercolors – a landscape painted in New Mexico in the early 1970s – is currently on loan to the Blue Mountain Gallery for their anniversary celebration exhibit, which continues through Dec. 30, 2010.

Neppie Conner was born in 1917 in Fort Worth, Texas and she graduated from Texas Christian University with a double major in German and art. During World War II she was an air traffic controller in Albuquerque, N.M., but after the war she decided to follow her passion and went to Iowa State University to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree. As one of the few female faculty members in the department in the mid-20th century, she twice served as chair of the art department and taught in the Fine Arts Center when it opened in 1951.

For more information about the gallery, go to www.bluemountaingallery.org.