[av_slideshow_full size=’no scaling’ stretch=” animation=’fade’ autoplay=’false’ interval=’5′ control_layout=’av-control-default’ src=” attachment=” attachment_size=” position=’top left’ repeat=’no-repeat’ attach=’scroll’]
[av_slide_full slide_type=’image’ id=’60624′ video=” mobile_image=” video_format=” video_ratio=” title=’Jane Bolmeier:
Flower Child’ custom_title_size=’48’ custom_content_size=’20’ caption_pos=’caption_center’ link_apply=” link=’lightbox’ link_target=” button_label=” button_color=’light’ link1=’manually,http://’ link_target1=” button_label2=” button_color2=’light’ link2=’manually,http://’ link_target2=” font_color=’custom’ custom_title=’#ffffff’ custom_content=’#ededed’ overlay_enable=’aviaTBaviaTBoverlay_enable’ overlay_opacity=’0.1′ overlay_color=’#444444′ overlay_pattern=” overlay_custom_pattern=”]
BY TOM HOEPF
[/av_slide_full]
[/av_slideshow_full]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#ffffff’]
Like many of Bolmeier works, this poppy painting was started outside and completed over multiple sessions indoors.
The 11 by 14 painting is mixed media on board. Image courtesy of the artist.
[/av_textblock]
[av_section min_height=” min_height_px=’500px’ padding=’default’ shadow=’no-border-styling’ bottom_border=’no-border-styling’ id=” color=’main_color’ custom_bg=’#f2f2f2′ src=” attachment=” attachment_size=” attach=’scroll’ position=’top left’ repeat=’no-repeat’ video=” video_ratio=’16:9′ overlay_opacity=’0.5′ overlay_color=” overlay_pattern=” overlay_custom_pattern=”]
[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=’av-align-top’ space=” margin=’0px’ margin_sync=’true’ padding=’10px,20px,10px,20px’ border=’1′ border_color=’#eaeaea’ radius=’0px’ radius_sync=’true’ background_color=’#ffffff’ src=” attachment=” attachment_size=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’]
[av_hr class=’invisible’ height=’30’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_border_color=” custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’yes’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Her paintings aren’t displayed in major museums, and she isn’t represented by an exclusive gallery, but among her friends, family and community Jane Bolmeier is known as a talented and respected painter.
[/av_textblock]
[av_hr class=’invisible’ height=’30’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_border_color=” custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’yes’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’]
[av_textblock size=’16’ font_color=’custom’ color=’#686868′]
She is not wealthy and neither has she had her – as Andy Warhol put it – 15 minutes of fame. Yet Bolmeier has produced a considerable body of work since moving to New York City in 1957 and continued to paint until her passing July 11, 2011, at the age of 79.
Much of her recognition was through solo and group exhibitions at Westbeth Gallery, which showcases the work of residents of the Westbeth artist community in the Far West Village in Manhattan.
Bolmeier lived at historic Westbeth, a residential and studio complex in the former Bell Labs, for more than 30 years. During that time she worked to earn a living and painted for her own enjoyment.
Jane Bolmeier was born Oct. 2, 1931 in Chicago, while her father was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. She and her twin, Joan, grew up in Jackson, Miss., where their father was a school administrator.
“When I was in junior high school and high school we lived next door to a person who was vice president of the Mississippi Art Association. Oh, the paintings she had of artists from Jackson, Mississippi, … I decided I would like to be a painter so I could have paintings in my house,” said Bolmeier, adding her father was supportive of her art and education.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at Duke and a master’s in creative art at the University of North Carolina, Bolmeier taught school one year in North Carolina. “I didn’t like it. I wasn’t a disciplinarian,” she said bluntly.
Determined to be a painter, Bolmeier spent the summers of 1955 and 1956 at abstract painter Hans Hofmann’s art school at Provincetown, Mass., on Cape Cod. “He was one of the best teachers in the United States at that time. He had a dynamic personality and was very encouraging,” said Bolmeier, who keeps an inspirational letter from Hofmann urging her to continue painting.
To do that Bolmeier had to move. “I wanted to be a painter so I moved to New York. At that time most of the people involved in the arts lived in New York,” said Bolmeier, who found work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “They said if I learned to type I could have the job,” she said.
Meanwhile Bolmeier followed Hofmann’s advice. “He said even though you have a full-time job and you’re pursuing a career in art, as long you keep painting – it’s good to paint large and wild,” said Bolmeier.
Indeed she did, in 1958 and 1959 creating a series of numbered abstract expressionist paintings as large as 68 by 100 inches. Soon, however, painting such large canvasses posed a practical problem for an unknown artist. “Many painters paint large when they’re young. These things are difficult to sell, they’re hard to store and they eventually just disappear,” said Bolmeier.
While reducing the scale of her art, Bolmeier kept painting, even while working at what she describes as “regular jobs.” Those included stints at Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. and an office job at Hunter College in Manhattan, where she stayed long enough to earn a pension. “The pension really helps,” said Bolmeier, who lives in an apartment and has a separate studio at Westbeth.
“There were years at Westbeth I couldn’t paint; my space was just too small. That’s one reason I went to graduate school,” said Bolmeier, who earned a doctorate degree with an emphasis in Art Criticism from New York University. Her dissertation was titled “Rauschenberg and His Critics.”
“(Robert) Rauschenberg had a one-person exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, and I recalled reading a review in one of the art magazines – and then I dreamt about him. When I dreamt about him, it was really an inner motivation, although I don’t think I have much in common with Rauchenberg,” she said.
Bolmeier, like her mentor, Hofmann, had a passion for nature, which is evident in her painting, whether it’s a still life or a landscape. She loved spending Septembers in Provincetown when the crowds are gone and lodging is less expensive. “I studied there with Hofmann and I enjoy painting the water, the boats … and the light is so special.” Bolmeier found natural beauty around her neighborhood in New York. Starting in 1969 she often painted at St. Luke’s Gardens in West Village.
“St. Luke in the Fields is a church on Hudson Street that has a beautiful garden. I painted oil pastels there. A couple of them are hanging in the meeting room of the manse,” she said.
While Bolmeier did not know of any major art collectors who own her work, occasionally her paintings go to someone outside her family and circle of friends.
“Several years ago a doctor wanted to buy a Hans Hofmann, but a Hofmann is so expensive. So he found a list of Hofmann’s students, checked on my work on my Web site and liked it. He lived a couple miles from here. He came over and bought two paintings,” said Bolmeier, adding that her paintings are “very moderately” priced. “Except for the very big ones, they’re less than a thousand dollars, that that’s very cheap for a painting,” she said.
Bolmeier’s output increased after moving to a studio at Westbeth, separate from her apartment. She worked there when New York winters prevented her from painting outdoors. It had a view of the Hudson River just across West Street. “One of the windows of my apartment looks down the Hudson River, and on a clear day I can see the Statue of Liberty, which is nice,” said Bolmeier.
The “comfort” Bolmeier’s paintings exude is what impresses Cynthia Maris Dantzic, an art professor at Long Island University. “She has the ability to transport the viewer to the spot without putting in so much of her personality and trying for a style, just trying to give you the feeling of the space, the light and the land. At the same time her work has all the criteria … color, form, composition – all those things you look for in a painting,” she said.
Dantzic chose to feature Bolmeier in her new book 100 New York Painters on the recommendation of Bruno Palmer-Poroner, former owner of the prestigious East Hampton Gallery and former owner and publisher of Artspeak, an international art review.
“I didn’t want only to put in super-famous names like Chuck Close and Alex Katz. They’re all in the book and that’s wonderful, but I wanted to include people who might be wonderful but not known to me. So I asked people who I respected and Jane was one of the people who was highly recommended,” said Dantzic.
Bolmeier’s small paintings are described on the Westbeth Web site as having “vivid hues, soft washes, deeply colored gessoed backgrounds, and a broad range of textures and movement.”
Though Bolmeier has painted flowers throughout her career, she hesitated to call them her specialty. “I don’t know that I’m best known for painting flowers. When I first moved to New York my paintings were more subjective inward. Now when I paint I look onward at nature,” she said.
As a single woman artist living in New York City in the tumultuous 1960s, one might expect Bolmeier to have had a wild side. “Probably not,” she said with a chuckle. “I painted wild because basically I was not wild.”
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
[/av_section]
[av_hr class=’invisible’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_border_color=” custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’yes’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’]
[av_one_fifth first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’][/av_one_fifth]
[av_four_fifth min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’]
[av_sidebar widget_area=’SCM – 728×90 – footer’]
[/av_four_fifth]
[av_hr class=’invisible’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_border_color=” custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’yes’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’]
[av_slideshow_full size=’no scaling’ stretch=” animation=’fade’ autoplay=’false’ interval=’5′ control_layout=’av-control-default’ src=” attachment=” attachment_size=” position=’top left’ repeat=’no-repeat’ attach=’scroll’]
[av_slide_full slide_type=’image’ id=’60633′ video=” mobile_image=” video_format=” video_ratio=” title=” custom_title_size=” custom_content_size=” caption_pos=’caption_right caption_right_framed caption_framed’ link_apply=” link=’lightbox’ link_target=” button_label=” button_color=’light’ link1=’manually,http://’ link_target1=” button_label2=” button_color2=’light’ link2=’manually,http://’ link_target2=” font_color=” custom_title=” custom_content=” overlay_opacity=’0.1′ overlay_color=” overlay_pattern=” overlay_custom_pattern=”][/av_slide_full]
[/av_slideshow_full]