Judi Rotenberg
April 30, 2022 — July 3, 2022
The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to offer a special exhibition of recent paintings by contemporary artist Judi Rotenberg. A life-long summer resident of Rockport and a highly respected artist, Judi works on a large scale, creating vibrant canvases that capture the fragility and strength of life through floral still lifes. It is a genre that Rotenberg has perfected over the past 40 years, and which continues to captivate her today.
A daughter of the late American Impressionist Harold Rotenberg, Judi Rotenberg has immersed herself in art since childhood. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boston University where she studied with Reed Kay and David Aaronson. She also studied privately with Francois Gall in Paris and Henry Schwartz in Boston. Here on Cape Ann, Judi benefited from instruction from Albert Alcalay, Barbara Swan and George Demetrios. Classically trained and accomplished at portraiture and landscape as well as still lifes, in 2012-2013 Judi had the great honor of being selected as a copyist at the Louvre in Paris.
Working primarily in acrylic, Judi Rotenberg’s recent paintings are unabashedly beautiful, alive with color and motion. Each composition is vibrant and fresh and represents a new challenge for Judi. Her canvases are rich in detail, from the foreground and the table on which a vase and bouquet sit, through the center of the canvas with its explosion of blossoms, to the top of the composition where Judi often includes the view across her studio or out over Rockport Harbor.
The tradition of women artists working on Cape Ann is a strong one and through her work Judi Rotenberg has earned a place among the most accomplished of them. Although long overshadowed by their male counterparts, women have consistently made important contributions in the field and continue to today. Many women painters have focused on still lifes, perhaps most notably Nell Blaine, but none have endowed their work with the color and power that Rotenberg has.
Judi Rotenberg. Still Life and Motif in Cad. Red Light, 2020. Acrylic on canvas. Promised gift to the Cape Ann Museum