A public reception for Betty Altman is scheduled for Oct. 15, 6-9 p.m. at the gallery.
The Betty Altman Retrospective Exhibit will continue through Oct. 30 at Art Uptown, located at 1367 Main St., Sarasota, between Palm and Pineapple avenues.
A retrospective exhibition of the paintings of Nokomis artist Betty Altman will be held during October at Art Uptown gallery in Sarasota as part of the inaugural Festival sARTée program of events surrounding the Ringling International Arts Festival. Mrs. Altman, who celebrated her 96th birthday with a party at the south Main Street gallery in May, has been exhibiting her paintings there for nearly 30 years, according to Barrington DeMers, Art Uptown president.
"Art Uptown is honored to host this important exhibition of Betty's works during Festival sARTée, which is intended to showcase the region's arts and cultural treasures," said DeMers. "She has been a treasure to Art Uptown for nearly 30 years," he added, noting that Mrs. Altman was a charter member of Art Uptown, Sarasota's oldest cooperative fine art gallery, founded in 1981.
DeMers related that the 27 members of Art Uptown unanimously voted in August to make Mrs. Altman an Honorary Life Member, "as a token of our appreciation for her years of support to the gallery, her many achievements in the arts and her dedication to young artists throughout the area whose lives she has touched."
Mrs. Altman completed a BA degree and did graduate work in French at the University of Rochester in New York before her marriage and move to Chicago in 1939. That same year she entered the Art Institute of Chicago, starting her 70-year-long career as an artist. Her early works in were done in oils, mainly figurative portraiture and still life paintings, she recounted.
After moving to Florida in 1975, she took a more abstract, impressionistic approach, expanding into acrylics, watercolors, collage and mono-printing. Later works include images from her frequent travels throughout Europe and beyond, for which she has won top state, national and international honors and ribbons.
"I've always tried to stir the mind, stimulate the imagination and pull the viewer into my paintings," commented the artist, whose paintings have been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally in her long career as an artist. Her favorite exhibits include one at the Centre International de L'Art Contemporain in Paris and another at the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center in New York City, she noted.
"Hers is a world of color, mesmerized by the awesome forces of nature, the sunsets, storms and ever-changing water-world of the Gulf of Mexico adjoining her home (in Casey Key, Nokomis)," reads a tribute to Mrs. Altman on the website of the National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW), one of the oldest arts organizations for women in the United States.
Mrs. Altman has been a member of the Sarasota branch of NLAPW for 25 years, during which time she headed the Art Awards and Scholarship Awards committees. She also served as president and vice president of the local branch.
"Betty Altman's legacy is abundant and active. She defies the rules of aging and talks openly and acts assertively," reads the website tribute. "Her gift for giving is legendary, her outreach powerful, her honesty unparalleled. In her spare time, when she is not painting yet another masterpiece in her studio, working on one of her many noble causes or traveling the globe, you will find Betty busy writing her autobiography - which is certain to be a best seller.
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