Michele Martin Taylor
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Michele Martin Taylor (born Michele Francisca Martin in 1946 in Los Angeles, California), is an American fine art painter. She is best known for her
Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
works in oil,
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
and intaglio. Her subjects are often gardens, water and verdure, but also portraits, figural studies and interiors.


Biography and career

Taylor studied drawing and painting at the Chouinard Art Institute,
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
California, California State University, Northridge, California. and
Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...
, Corvallis, Oregon, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art, painting and printmaking, and a Bachelor of Science degree in art education. During her formative academic years, she studied with Saul Bernstein, John Henry Rock, and Mark Sponenburgh In 1978, Taylor pursued post-graduate independent study in Paris, France, under
Gordon Gilkey Gordon Waverly Gilkey (March 10, 1912 – October 28, 2000) was an American artist, educator, and promoter of the arts from Oregon. A native Oregonian, he served during World War II in Europe collecting art stolen by the Nazis for which he w ...
, with specific concentration on the works of post-impressionist
Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...
, focusing on the usage of colour. During the 1980s, Michele Martin Taylor exhibited at regional American Northwest art museums, including the Portland Arts Museum, Oregon, (1982),
Bellevue Arts Museum The Bellevue Arts Museum is a museum of contemporary visual art, craft, and design located in Bellevue, Washington, part of the greater Seattle metropolitan area. A nonprofit organization established in 1975, the Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM) provides ...
, Washington (1982), and Seattle Art Museum, Oregon (1984). During this period, she also exhibited her work at major Portland, Oregon art galleries, among them, The Lawrence GalleryCharlotte Graydon, "Dutch flowers bloom again in Taylor paintings," The Oregonian (Portland, OR), June 11, 1982, p. E12 bid./ref> and Fountain Gallery Exhibitions of paintings created during this period were noted in the Oregon press. Many of these achievements were chronicled in 1984 in her vetted listing in
Who's Who in American Art ''Who's Who in American Art'' is a biographical hardcover directory of noteworthy individuals in the visual arts community in the United States, published by Marquis Who's Who,"Who's Who in American Art 2011 – Publications", Marquis Who's Who, ...
(16th edition). In the early 1990s, Taylor moved to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where she opened her own art gallery in Carlisle PA, and showed work there, in other national venues, and continuing to exhibit in Oregon. Her work was featured in Architectural Digest, and she was commissioned to paint the portrait of former Pennsylvania Lt. Governor Mark Singel to hang in the state Capitol. In 1997, Michele Taylor established an art gallery, Taylor & Sons Fine Art, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. There she exhibited her own and other mid-career artists’ works, and organized art related neighborhood events. She also undertook to mentor and develop emerging artists. In 2002, Taylor, with artist Andrei Kushnir, opened an art gallery in Ellicott City, MD. She continued to exhibit her own works in one-artist exhibits at this venue. In 2004, Taylor and Kushnir opened a second art gallery in the East Village, Manhattan, where they exhibited their own works as well as other New York artists. In 2007, Taylor exhibited new paintings in a one-artist show titled "A Quiet Life, Modern Post-Impressionist Paintings," at American Painting Fine Art, in Washington, DC. In 2008, Taylor was commissioned to paint the portraits of important Ukrainian Americans, which were included in an exhibit of notable persons of Ukrainian descent at the Ukraine House museum, in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2010, Taylor exhibited new paintings of irises and lupines from Oregon's famed Schreiner's Iris Gardens in a show titled "A Painted Garden," at American Painting Fine Art, Washington, D.C.


Exhibitions and collections

Taylor's work has been featured in the gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States, including in Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; New York, New York; Washington, D.C.; Boston, Massachusetts; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her paintings have also been exhibited in U.S. Embassies abroad, as well as in venues in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Michele Martin Taylor's art has been widely received and is included in the collections of the Emperor and Empress of Japan, The Portland (Oregon) Art Museum, District of Columbia's Public Art Collection, the Mayo Clinic Foundation, The Marriott Corporation, and the private collection of Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was both the first woman nominated and th ...
. Over 1,200 of Michele's original works are included in public and private collections throughout the world.Charlotte Graydon, "Dutch flowers bloom again in Taylor paintings," The Oregonian (Portland, OR), June 11, 1982, p. E12. accessed on August 10, 2016.
/ref> Her work is in the Yaquina River Museum of Art, Portland (Oregon) Art Museum, and City of Lake Oswego Art Collection, The Smithsonian Institution Libraries Collections database includes extensive files with Taylor's exhibition announcements, newspaper and/or magazine clippings, press releases, brochures, reviews, invitations, illustrations, resumes, artist's statements, and exhibition catalogs:


Critical evaluation

In a review of one of Taylor's exhibitions, the art critic stated " window into the soul, this seems the most appropriate characterization of the quiescent, almost ethereal work of painter Michele Taylor….Taylor's strong knowledge of the oil medium and skilful execution of impressionist canon meld beautifully and effectively with her sensitive consideration of mood and feeling. By doing so, she breathes new life into a form of painting much imitated and overblown by many contemporary artists."


Recognition

In 1983 Taylor was honored by Oregon State University for outstanding achievement in the arts (one of four artists chosen between 1960 and 1983) as an Oregon State University Distinguished Alumni. Also in 1983, Schreiner's Iris Gardens, of Salem, Oregon, named a new hybrid iris "Michele Taylor" in honor of her iris garden paintings.


Gallery

File:1 PDX Roses 50x80 oc 1987 Lattice Corp Portland OR.png, PDX Roses, 50" x 80" Oil on Canvas, Lattice Corp., Portland, Oregon File:Cana Reflections 50x60 oc 1983 Weil Gotshal and Manges.jpg, Cana Reflections, 50" x 60" Oil on Canvas, 1983, Weil, Gotshal and Manges File:At the Window The Cousins 40x30. oc 1984 Private Collection.jpg, At the Window, the Cousins, 40" x 30" Oil on canvas, 1984, Private Collection File:East Village Sunlight 50x60 oc 2008 Private Collection.jpg, East Village Sunlight, 50" x 60" Oil on Canvas, 2008, Private Collection


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Michele Martin Living people 1946 births People from Los Angeles 20th-century American painters American women painters 21st-century American painters Oregon State University alumni California State University, Northridge alumni Chouinard Art Institute alumni 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists