Artist Janet Lippman’s earliest memory is of “lying in a baby carriage looking up at the sky, watching clouds forming different patterns.” With an innate attraction to color and shape, and a love of painting even as a small child, her lifetime of art was surely destined to follow. This April she will be celebrating both her 90th birthday and a new show of her paintings at Irvington Public Library’s Martucci Gallery, from April 1 to 30.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Lippman achieved a BA and an MA in art and education at Brooklyn College, followed by postgraduate studies at NYU, and went on to teach at a New York City high school. “But what happened was that I got married very young and raised three children and I didn’t have much time to do my own art although I did teach teenagers painting and ceramics all that time, at home.”
Home, then, was in Mount Vernon, but the family moved to Tarrytown in 1972, “because my husband, a researcher and professor in the department of environmental medicine at New York University, was working at a lab across what was called the Tappan Zee Bridge at that time, and it was easier for him to get to work there.” Lippman has lived in Tarrytown ever since, for some 54 years.
In 1974, when the children were older, she tried to find another teaching job, but this proved difficult and she decided instead to open an art gallery in Irvington, the River Gallery, a successful exhibition space which ran for 15 years.
Lippman’s own creative breakthrough came 10 years later, in 1984. “I was painting at home but I wasn’t showing my own work at my gallery. I was painting the wisteria at Washington Irving’s home, nearby, and I was struggling with the wisteria. I was familiar with Monet’s beautiful, famous painting of the purple wisteria on his Japanese bridge and I knew they had restored Monet’s gardens in Giverny.” That connection gave her an excuse to travel to Giverny, and in a pamphlet at the Metropolitan Museum’s bookstore she found details of the director of the gardens, to whom she wrote. Back came a letter with details of how to get to Giverny and where Lippman might stay. “So I packed suitcase with canvas and paints and I flew to Paris, by myself.”
She spent two weeks in France, painting in Monet’s garden every day and taking photos. “When I got home, I spent two years getting ready to give myself an exhibit of thirteen large paintings.” The show, based on her studies at Giverny, was entitled “A Painter’s Odyssey” and Lippman sold most of the paintings, including one to the Reader’s Digest collection.
More impressionistic nature paintings in oils and pastels have followed, often inspired by gardens abroad, including a set derived from a trip to Italy. The artist has also exhibited widely, including at the Rockefeller Preserve Gallery, and the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.
For the new exhibition, though, Lippman has concentrated on views closer to home. “The work in the forthcoming exhibit is pretty recent and more abstract, not as impressionistic,” she said. Lippman’s creative journey continues.
There will be an artist’s reception & 90th birthday celebration on Saturday, April 18 from 1-4 PM. If you wish to attend, RSVP to jlippmann@earthlink.net.
