September Issue 2000
Terry Katz Gallery Celebrates Opening Doors in Charleston, SC
"I know it can't be, but is that a Monet?
is the question I often hear as people come into the gallery,"
says Mary Hollingsworth, manager for the new Terry Katz Gallery
at 65 Broad Street, in Charleston, SC, which features Terry Katz's
vibrant impressionist oils.
Katz, although embarrassed, warms to this highest of compliments
since she claims she should have a Ph.D. in Monet Gazing, given
the time spent studying the great master's brush strokes at the
Metropolitan in New York, or the Marmottan or the Orangerie in
Paris, not to mention the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia,
or any of the other museums touting even one Monet. "It's
the play of light and the layering of paint, that wonderful scumbling
effect of one color revealing itself through another," Katz
explains. "And his shadows! Look at all those fantastic colors
in just one inch of his shadows!"
Although Katz received her BA in art and art
history from St. Mary's College at Notre Dame, IN, she credits
her museum jaunts abroad with the development of her technique
and style. That, and painting classes at the High Museum in Atlanta
under the late Ben Shute. Studying in Atlanta with Roman and Constantin
Chatov, portrait painters from Russia, was another significant
influence on Katz's work. "They were both wonderful with
color, with shadow and light, and although the human figure was
our subject, their instruction easily translated into landscape
form and content. They taught me to see, which, of course, is
rather important if you intend to paint," she says with a
laugh. Roman Chatov had great stories on rooming with Willem de
Kooning and painting the murals for the original Russian Tea Room
in New York City.
Early on, Katz painted portraits but quickly switched to landscapes.
"My four sons were very young and my clients were mostly
children their age. Needless to say, it was a bit hectic and I
didn't want to follow Van Gogh's footsteps to St. Remy without
my ear." Katz's painting career has been what she terms highly
unusual. Before she'd had even one show, two galleries, on 5th
Street in New York City, The Eric Galleries and The Reese Gallery,
wanted her work. "I was too surprised for words, but thrilled.
I think it was the slide of my four boys with their dog in a baseball
cap, mixed in by mistake with the painting slides, that did the
trick," says Katz.
"People say my paintings make them feel good, feel happy.
And that's music to my heart," says Katz. "I paint to
make myself happy, so thankfully this must be felt by the viewer.
I prefer to stay on the light side, not to take myself too seriously.
Once, after doing a series of nudes at the Chatov studios, a client
observed that I only painted the backs of nudes and he saw deep
psychological meaning in that. My answer was that my children
were toddlers and I was always late for class and the only spot
left for my easel faced the back of the nude."
Katz feels it is serendipity that she is now living in Charleston,
enabling her to draw on the lush scenes of the Lowcountry. She
can also see her longtime friend, Pat Conroy, when he drops by
now and then. "Although he claims I'm the only one who ever
rejected him. I still have a packet of letters he wrote me his
freshman year at The Citadel. They were not your run-of-the-mill
boyfriend letters, as you can imagine," says Katz. "With
fifty dollars to spend that he'd won for his poem, Dallas,
about President Kennedy's assassination, he invited me down for
the graduation dance. Little did I know that Pat would later tell
me I'm in all his books. Hope I'm not Red Pettus in The Great
Santini," she jokes.
The Terry Katz Gallery will host a gallery celebration on Sept. 29, from 5:30 to 8:30pm. The public is invited to come and join in the celebration.
For more info check our SC Commercial Gallery listings or call 843/534-2020.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
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