Rita Blitt

Last updated

Rita Blitt
Born
Rita Copaken

(1931-09-07) September 7, 1931 (age 93)
Alma mater University of Missouri–Kansas City
OccupationArtist
Movement Expressionism, Post-Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism
Spouse
Irwin Blitt
(m. 19512017)
Website ritablitt.com

Rita Blitt (born Rita Copaken, September 7, 1931) is an American painter, sculptor and filmmaker.

Contents

Biography

Rita Blitt is an American contemporary painter, sculptor and film collaborator. Born Rita Lea Copaken in Kansas City Missouri on September 7, 1931, to Dorothy Sofnas Copaken and Herman Copaken, Blitt was married for 66 years to Irwin Blitt, 1928-2017. Blitt attended the University of Illinois and received a degree in Fine Arts in 1952 from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. After her bachelor’s degree, Blitt continued her art studies at the Kansas City Art Institute with painter Wilbur Niewald. In 2010 Blitt received the UMKC Spotlight Alumnus Award. [1]

Blitt is known for her abstract organic lines and shapes inspired by nature, music and dance, such as her black line paintings and pastel "Oval" series. Blitt has used her drawings as inspiration for sculpture, the tallest being "One" standing at 60 feet in Overland Park, Kansas. [2] Blitt has been involved in the making of several films about her art practice and artistic collaborations. "Caught in Paint", 2003, is a 6 minute film following the collaboration of Blitt, David Parsons, the Parsons Dance Company, and Lois Greenfield, dance photographer. [3] The film received 16 awards and was shown at over 130 film festivals. Blitt is also known for her words, "Kindness is contagious. Catch it!", which have inspired kindness programs and awards including the Kindest Kansas Citian [4] and the Kindest School.

Aspen has been a source of inspiration for Blitt. Her drawing was featured on the cover of the 2011 Aspen Music festival's program book. [5] Also, she was honored by Aspen's Red Brick Art Center in 2012. [6]

Blitt's paintings and sculpture have been featured in over 70 solo exhibitions in the United States, Israel and Singapore. [7]

A five foot Blitt sculpture, "Sensuously Stacked Steel," placed fifth in the 2005 Florence Biennale. [8]

The Omni award winning book "Rita Blitt: The Passionate Gesture", 2000, ISBN   0-9630785-8-5, documents selected Blitt drawings, paintings and sculpture from a period of twenty years.

The Rita Blitt Gallery and Sculpture Garden housing her legacy collection opened November 3, 2017 at The Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. [9] In 2019, Washburn awarded Blitt an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Fine Arts. [10]

Museums

Awards and honours

Published works

Films

Related Research Articles

Blackbear Bosin was a self-taught Kiowa/Comanche sculptor, painter, and commercial artist. He is also known by his Kiowa name, Tsate Kongia, which means "black bear."

Karole Armitage is an American dancer and choreographer currently based in New York City. She is artistic director of Armitage Gone! Dance, a contemporary dance company that performs several times annually in New York City as well as touring internationally. She was dubbed the “punk ballerina” in the 1980s. She earned a Tony nomination for her choreography of the Broadway musical Hair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Jonas</span> American visual artist (born 1936)

Joan Jonas is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, "a central figure in the performance art movement of the late 1960s". Jonas' projects and experiments were influential in the creation of video performance art as a medium. Her influences also extended to conceptual art, theatre, performance art and other visual media. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiki Smith</span> German-born American artist

Kiki Smith is a German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS, feminism, and gender, while recent works have depicted the human condition in relationship to nature. Smith lives and works in the Lower East Side, New York City, and the Hudson Valley, New York State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huma Bhabha</span> American sculptor (born 1962)

Huma Bhabha is a Pakistani-American sculptor based in Poughkeepsie, New York. Known for her uniquely grotesque, figurative forms that often appear dissected or dismembered, Bhabha often uses found materials in her sculptures, including styrofoam, cork, rubber, paper, wire, and clay. She occasionally incorporates objects given to her by other people into her artwork. Many of these sculptures are also cast in bronze. She is equally prolific in her works on paper, creating vivid pastel drawings, eerie photographic collages, and haunting print editions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathan Sawaya</span> American artist (born 1973)

Nathan Sawaya is an American artist who builds custom three-dimensional sculptures and large-scale mosaics from popular everyday items and is best known for his work with standard Lego building bricks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zlatko Ćosić</span>

Zlatko Ćosić is a video artist born in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia whose work includes short films, video installations, theater and architectural projections, and audio-visual performances. Ćosić's experience as a refugee influenced and shaped the content of his early artistic practice. His work began with the challenges of immigration and shifting identities, evolving to socio-political issues related to injustice, consumerism, and climate crisis. Ćosić's artwork has been shown in over fifty countries in exhibitions such as the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Video Vortex XI at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, St. Louis International Film Festival, Torrance Art Museum, Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, /si:n/ Video Art and Performance Biennale, Institut Für Alles Mögliche, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Kunstverein Kärnten, Art Speaks Out at 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and the Research Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Ćosić has received grants and fellowships including the Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, a Kranzberg Grant for a video installation at Laumeier Sculpture Park, and the WaveMaker Grant, Locust Projects, supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Lassnig</span> Austrian artist (1919–2014)

Maria Lassnig was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of "body awareness". She was the first female artist to win the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1988 and was awarded the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2005. Lassnig lived and taught in Vienna from 1980 until her death.

The Walking Bods are a set of seven steel sculptures crafted by Barrett DeBusk. They stand 9 feet tall, and are each a different, solid color. They are on permanent display on the Washburn University Campus in Topeka, Kansas. They were first put on display through the summer of 2004. DeBusk was inspired for these sculptures while walking down Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. He said "I was struck by the mass of people, all moving in different directions, so alike but so different. My Bods represent different people in their daily march of life."

Madhusudhanan is an Indian film maker and artist, also known as K. M. Madhusudhanan. His debut feature film, Bioscope has received many awards. He is working with different media in art, including sculpture, printmaking installation art and film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shahar Marcus</span> Israeli artist (born 1971)

Shahar Marcus is an Israeli artist who works primarily in video, performance and installations.

William L. Haney is recognized for his narrative-realist paintings. His paintings were constructed as conceptual collages involving social-political issues of the late 20th century. Haney was intensely engaged in art history, often referencing other artists and the world around him. His artistic process consisted of drawing and collecting images from magazines, posters, and other sources. Usually, he would prepare watercolor first and then plan placement as per color attributes, finishing with an oil painting and print. His draftsman skills only allowed him to draw on canvas without the aid of a camera. He was also known as a super-realist and a post photo-realist. Other contemporary painters working in a super-realistic or hyper-realistic style are Richard Estes and Robert Birmelin.

Aïda Ruilova is an American contemporary artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Terrell</span> American painter (1908–1993)

Elizabeth E. Terrell was an American artist who completed works for the Works Progress Administration. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Terrell is known for her abstract and modern figures, still life paintings, and murals. She exhibited her art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Whitney Museum of American Art. She did frescos, mixed media, mosaics, gouache and oil paintings. She produced a mural at the Starke, Florida Post Office titled "Reforestation" (1942). She was part of an exhibition with Rufino Tamayo and Julian Levi at the Ottumwa Art Center in Ottumwa, Iowa. Her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Apfelbaum</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1955)

Polly E. Apfelbaum is an American contemporary visual artist, who is primarily known for her colorful drawings, sculptures, and fabric floor pieces, which she refers to as "fallen paintings". She currently lives and works in New York City, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NedRa Bonds</span>

NedRa Bonds is an American quilter, activist, and retired teacher, born and raised in the historic Quindaro neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Bonds creates quilts and mixed media fiber dolls using fabric, beads, and symbolism to explore issues dealing with human rights, race, women, politics, and the environment. She is best known for her Quindaro Quilt, a quilt measuring 4 by 6 feet, detailing the important history of the Quindaro neighborhood and its role as part of the National Underground Railroad System of Historic Trails. As a community activist and educator, Bonds advocates for legislation, taught workshops locally and internationally, and attended the Earth Summit Conference on Environment and Development of the United Nations as a delegate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Bonds is a practicing artist and retired teacher in Kansas City, Kansas. Her recent projects include her Common Threads quilt, commissioned by the Kansas City Chiefs for their Arrowhead Arts Collection, the Wak’ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural collaboration, sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grant Program, in Lawrence, Kansas, and her recent cancer project. Bonds was appointed to the Kansas Arts Commission by Kansas Governor Joan Finney in 1992.

James Pringle Cook is an American painter based in Tucson, Arizona, known nationally for expressive, monumental landscapes and urban scenes that employ vigorous brushwork and thick, impasto surfaces and move between realism and passages of abstraction. He has explored a wide range of geographies across the United States and subjects from craggy mountains and seascapes to industrial accidents to the figure. Curators and critics, however, generally agree that his work is as much about pure painting as it is about his convincing recapitulations of the world and a sense of place. Museum Director Robert Yassin described Cook as "a painter who is in love with painting [whose] bravura use of paint is akin to the abstract expressionists; unlike them, however, he provides viewers with a recognizable reality, ordered by his own personal vision and controlled by his technical mastery." Discussing his urban works, Margaret Regan wrote, "Cook is so skilled a painter he can turn almost anything into a thing of beauty […] His bravura handling of the paint is what matters: his pure layers of color, slabbed in thick gobs onto his linen canvases with a palette knife, glistening like butter."

Colette Stuebe Bangert is an American artist and new media artist who has created both computer-generated and traditional artworks. Her computer-generated artworks are the product of a decades-long collaboration with her husband, Charles Jeffries "Jeff" Bangert (1938–2019), a mathematician and computer graphics programmer. Bangert's work in traditional media includes painting, drawing, watercolor and textiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasna Sal</span> American glass sculptor

Hasna Sal is an American glass sculptor known for designing and sculpting large-scale glass sculptures and glass jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Edward Barber</span> American artist (1918–2003)

Jack Edward Barber was an American artist working in oil, egg tempera, acrylics, watercolor, lithography, and sculpture. 

References

  1. "Honoring the 2010 Alumni Award recipients". University of Missouri-Kansas City Alumni Magazine. 3 March 2010.
  2. "Monumental Art". ritablitt.com.
  3. "Caught in Paint (2005)". imdb.com.
  4. "Ep. 165 - Rita Blitt on Small Changes Big Shifts". smallchangesbigshifts.com.
  5. "Reception for international award-winning artist Rita Blitt". Colorado Mountain College News. 6 July 2015.
  6. Stewart Oksenhorn (20 July 2012). "Rita Blitt to Be Honored by Aspen's Red Brick Center for the Arts". The Aspen Times.
  7. T.K. Sabapathy (16 April 1991). "Dances of Life". Straits Times. p. 7.
  8. 1 2 "Awarded Artists 2005 - Florence Biennale". florencebiennale.org.
  9. "Rita Blitt Gallery". Mulvane Art Museum.
  10. "Rita Blitt receives honorary doctorate". The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.