Painter Known for 'Marvelous Inventions of Light and Color Arrangements' to Present Guest Lecture

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Susan Lichtman

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas drawing and painting association in conjunction with the department of art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences will host contemporary painter Susan Lichtman for a guest lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, in room 213 of the Fine Arts Center.

Lichtman’s interiors and figurative work are more derived from memory, sketch’s and some photo reference rather than being directly from observation. Her paintings often depict domestic scenes with a hint of narrative that are based on views from her home of many years. She is often acclaimed for her inventions of light and color arrangements using flattened abstracted forms interacting in a potent visual drama.

Her oil and gouache paintings have been exhibited throughout the northeastern United States and Europe, most recently at the Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia, the Chazen Gallery in Providence, R.I., and in Montecastello di Vibbio, Italy, where she was senior artist in residence at the International School in 2012. Her exhibition at the Gross McCleaf Gallery was devoted to the theme of interiors.

“A limited palette allows me to hold together a picture with a lot of disparate elements,” Lichtman wrote for powersofobservation.com. “I use three primary colors and white for each painting. The Red might be venetian or cadmium, the Blue might be a cobalt or ultramarine or black or even a green; and the Yellow might be yellow ochre or a cadmium.”

She served as a visiting artist at the Hoffberger Graduate School of the Maryland Art Institute; the University of Washington in Seattle; Art New England, a MassArt program in Bennington, Vt.; and the University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Lichtman studied art at Brown University and received master of fine arts in painting from the Yale School of Art. She has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and was recently given the Leonard Bernstein Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University, where she is an associate professor of fine arts.