Quick Facts
LeoBiography
Frances Kornbluth (July 26, 1920 – May 26, 2014) was an American abstract expressionist painter.
Biography
Frances Kornbluth was born in New York City on July 26, 1920. Originally intent on becoming a composer, Kornbluth graduated from Brooklyn College in 1940 with a degree in music; however, in the 1950s she focused her creative energies on painting. Kornbluth studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1955 to 1959, where she first met Reuben Tam, and went on to receive a master's degree from the Pratt Institute in 1962. It was Tam who first introduced Kornbluth to Monhegan Island and helped define her as an artist. Kornbluth died on May 26, 2014 at the age of 93.
Works
The natural environment was the primary source of Kornbluth's inspiration, particularly that of Monhegan Island where she summered and painted from 1959 to 2013. Kornbluth painted at her studio in Lobster Cove on Monhegan and at her studio in Northeastern Connecticut. She worked in oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, ink and mixed media collage. Her work continues to be exhibited in both galleries and museums. Recent exhibits include:
- "Collage: Piecing It Together" at the Portland Museum of Art (2010)
- "On Island: Women Artists of Monhegan" at the University of New England (2007)
- "Monhegan: The Abstracted Island" at the Bates College Museum of Art (2001)
- "Overview: Four Decades" at the University of Connecticut (1996)
Awards
- Lifetime Achievement Award, Brooklyn College (2000)
- Miriam E. Halpern Memorial Award, National Association of Women Artists (1992)
- John Carl Georgo Memorial Award, National Association of Women Artists (1989)
- Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation Prize, National Association of Women Artists (1982)
- Helen Henningson Memorial Prize for Oil, National Association of Women Artists (1977)
- Charles H. Woodbury Prize for Landscape, National Association of Women Artists (1975)
- The Elizabeth Rungius Fulda Memorial Prize for Lyrical Landscape, National Association of Women Artists (1968)
- Medal of Honor, National Association of Women Artists (1968)
- Catherine & Henry J. Gaisman Prize for Watercolor, National Association of Women Artists (1961)
- Medal of Honor, National Association of Women Artists (1961)