Hannah Hollister Ingmire
A stroke of luck started my art career when a kindergarten painting I did of an exhausted train climbing up a mountain was accepted in a traveling exhibit of Pennsylvania children’s art and hung in a Philadelphia art museum. After that, it was all downhill! Still, I loved making pictures and continued with private lessons until college. I graduated from Grinnell College with a B.F.A. in painting and did postgraduate work at the University of Iowa where I studied with Mauricio Lasansky, the printmaker. I also attended Quincy University where I got a teacher's degree in art and taguth at Quincy High School for two years. I have continued to teach adults throughout my career.
Again, I had a stroke of luck when I was invited to have an exhibit at the Quincy, Illinois Public Library, who then commissioned me to do a 25-foot mural. At this time, I went into painting full time. I have had several one-woman shows and spent the next 30 years doing juried art festivals. Midwestern shows include: the Original Art Fair (Ann Arbor, MI), The Plaza Art Festival (Kansas City, MO), The Milwaukee Art Museum Lakefront Show, and several in St. Louis. Florida shows include: Los Olas Art Festival, Winter Park, Coconut Grove, Miami Beach, the University of Miami Art Festival, and Mainsail (St. Petersburg). During this period, I also was asked by the Bradford Exchange, an international collector plate company, to design 2 series of plates.
For 40 years my medium was transparent watercolor, and my subject matter was traditional realism. My work can be found in businesses, hospitals, and banks, as well as private collections.
In 2009, I had another stroke of luck - but the kind that led to tremors which meant that I could no longer paint with my past precision. Since painting is literally as necessary to me as eating, I found another way to express myself. Having trained at Grinnell College in the sixties with a wonderful abstract expressionist, Richard Cervene, I turned to big canvases and big brushes. Now, instead of meticulously preplanning each work, I wade in with my instincts. The result has been very freeing for me. Although my tremors have subsided, I continue to paint in this manner because it makes me happy and, I hope, my viewers!
For a private viewing, please contact me below.
