Francesca Sundsten (1960 – March 9, 2019) was an American painter. She applied traditional techniques while exploring elements of composition, palette, and minor abstractions of space and paint to create paintings and illustrations which were described by ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

'' as "calling to mind the Old Masters" with a "distinctly surrealist sensibility."

Life and career

Born in

Hemet, California Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census. The foundin ...

, Sundsten's family moved to the Seattle area when she was three. She began painting seriously in her early 20s, and enrolled at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

in 1984. Sundsten's interest was in representational painting, a style which was discouraged in her undergraduate program, and after seeing an

Odd Nerdrum Odd Nerdrum (born 8 April 1944) is a Norwegian figurative painter, born in Sweden, and considered to be one of the greatest living classical figurative painters. His work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work referenc ...

exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, she traveled to Oslo to study with him. She returned to the Art Institute following her informal internship, where she spent the following two years "defending the unpopular direction", and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1987. In 1990, she received a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Sundsten had solo exhibitions at the Grover/Thurston Galleries, Davidson Galleries, Linda Warren Gallery, Diane Nelson Fine Art, Olga Dollar Gallery, and Parker/Zinc Gallery, Hall Spassov Gallery and her work is in the permanent collections of the

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

, and the

University of Washington Medical Center The University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) is a hospital in the University District of Seattle, Washington. It is one of the teaching hospitals affiliated with the University of Washington School of Medicine.And is located in the War ...

. In a review of Sundsten's 2003 exhibit of drawings and paintings at the Davidson Galleries, the ''

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was foun ...

'' wrote that "Sundsten's fine painting and mastery of realism hides nothing in haze. Her quirky, starkly confrontational imagery doesn't disturb as much as it questions. The characters hang in confused naivete, pondering, 'How did I get here?'" Of her 2013 exhibit ''Creatures'' at the Grover/Thurston Galleries, art critic Michael Upchurch wrote: "Throughout "Creatures", Sundsten's dazzling painterly facility makes her fantastical subjects feel preposterously plausible." Sundsten taught at Stanford University, the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

, and

Cornish College of the Arts Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914. History Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of pi ...

. Sundsten, who played bass for the

art-punk Art punk is a subgenre of punk rock in which artists go beyond the genre's rudimentary garage rock and are considered more sophisticated than their peers. These groups still generated punk's aesthetic of being simple, offensive, and free-spirit ...

Seattle band

The Beakers The Beakers were an art punk band from Seattle, Washington. Although the band only existed for twelve months, they were considered influential on the local underground music scene. The band include Mark H. Smith as a vocalist and guitarist, Jim ...

, was married to King Crimson drummer

Bill Rieflin William Frederick Rieflin (September 30, 1960 – March 24, 2020) was an American musician. Rieflin came to prominence in the 1990s mainly for his work as a drummer with groups (particularly in the industrial rock and industrial metal scene ...

. On August 7, 2019, it was announced that Sundsten had died from complications of

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlar ...

Toyah Willcox Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English musician, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Willcox has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays an ...

, in announcing the death of Bill Rieflin one year later, confirmed that the date of her death had been March 9, 2019.

References

External links

Francesca Sundsten at Hall, Spassov Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sundsten, Francesca 1960 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists American women painters Artists from Seattle American contemporary painters Deaths from cancer in Washington (state) Deaths from lymphoma Painters from California People from Hemet, California San Francisco Art Institute alumni Stanford University alumni 21st-century American painters Students of Odd Nerdrum