Ellen Irvine, Painter

Ellen Irvine currently lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, near Washington, DC.  She began painting at 13. Early on, she received significant recognition for her work.  Her facility, control and rapid brush seek to explore the moment.  She has always appreciated J.M. Whistler’s observation, “As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.”  When teaching, required reading for her students was Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit.”

Between 1974 and 1994, her exhibition record included 31 group shows and nine solo shows in galleries on both U.S. coasts including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Yale School of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Natural History, Mira Costa College, CA, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, as well as the Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano, Mexico City, the World Bank, Washington, DC, and U.S. Embassy Invitationals in Paris.  Her shows were reviewed in the Baltimore Sun, San Diego Union, Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Sunset and San Diego Magazine.  Her first national review appeared in ARTnews (March 1984).  KPBS-TV, San Diego, CA, created a film documentary of her work for national TV in 1982.  Her first mural in 1980, a 25’x50’ panorama of black and white cows in downtown San Diego, was very popular until its demise years later.

In 1989 she joined the U.S. Foreign Service and stayed for 22 years.  She served as Public Affairs/Cultural Affairs Officer in six countries and was posted to Mexico, France, Congo, Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Madagascar, the Union of the Comoros, Belgium, Ghana and Washington, DC.  Throughout, she continued painting, receiving a number of commissions for portraits and large works while remaining a prolific painter of small works.

Education

1974 BFA summa cum laude, The Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and College Internationale de Cannes, France (1973)

1976 MFA Yale University Graduate School of Art, New Haven, CT (studied with Gabor Peterdi, William Bailey, Lester Johnson, Bernard Chaet, Gretna Campbell and Al Held)

1983  University of California at San Diego, MFA Program in Set Design for the Theater, (studied with Robert Israel), no degree

1987 MA University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, International Relations

Website:  www.ellenirvine.com

Contact:  ellen.irvine.va@gmail.com