Feature Articles


July Issue 2001

Gallery C in Raleigh, NC, Features a Retrospective of Nudes by Patricia H. Neff

Gallery C in Raleigh, NC, is proud to present a collection of 22 oils by Patricia H. Neff entitled, A Retrospective of Nudes by Patricia H. Neff (1933-2001), on view from July 18 through Aug. 7, 2001. This posthumous exhibition will be the first in-depth retrospective of this North Carolina artist's work. Neff made painting the female figure from life the major thrust of her life's work.

Neff was a graduate of Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA, where she majored in French and minored in Art History. She continued her art education at Beaver College (Arcadia University), The Tyler School of Art at Temple University, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and classes in portraiture with the famous portrait artist Daniel Greene in New York and Brittany France. However, the most formidable influence on her work was a twelve-year period of in-depth study with the internationally renowned figure painter Jacques Fabert in Bucks County. Fabert insisted on a classical approach to painting the figure grounded in a thorough understanding of anatomy.

Like her mentor, Neff began to see the female figure as a profound natural landscape in and of itself. It is for this reason that her paintings seem so austere. With little or no background to provide distractions, the figures are no longer a women in context but each an entire world to herself. Neff used multiple layers of translucent paint in a technique called glazing which lead to deeply luminous subjects. She had a strongly analytical eye and painted the figure as she saw it, flaws and all. Neff saw each body as unique and never imposed any subjective or romantic notions upon it. The resulting canvases are distinctive in style, honesty, and single-mindedness.

For further information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 919/828-3165, e-mail at (gallery@intrex.net) or on the web at (http://www.galleryc.net).

[ | July'01 | Feature Articles | Home | ]

Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer 427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.

Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.