Jeanette Koumjian - Honored Member 2014

Honored Member for 2014, Jeanette Koumjian has served under seven CLWAC Presidents, as Catalog Chair, Slide Chair, Prospectus Chair and now as Recording Secretary.  She has been called the Club's "Wordsmith," helping to edit and proof assorted documents, from the By-Laws to A Chronicle - The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, the recently published book that focuses on the Club's history.  Her service to the Club earned her the Creative Hands Award in 2004.

After a more than twenty-year career in advertising design and communications, Jeanette turned to fine art.  Rigorous study under Francis Cunningham helped her develop sound technique to serve her creative aspirations.  It was during this time that she assisted Cunningham and sculptor Barney Hodes to found The New Brooklyn School of Life Drawing, Painting and Sculpture which later merged with The New York Academy of Art, known for its classical fine arts instruction.

Jeanette's still lifes, executed in a closely observed representational style, meet challenges in terms of light, color and choice of objects in unusual compositions.  For landscapes, she has explored Santa Fe, World Heritage Sites in Taos Pueblo and Carlsbad Caverns and the National Historical Landmark, Green-Wood Cemetery, near her Brooklyn studio.  Also close by is Red Hook, a rapidly changing industrial waterfront that has served as inspiration.  These paintings reveal both the graphic and intensely emotional impact of places where man and nature meet. Whether she paints a broad panorama or an up-close detail, Jeanette strives to capture the bold raking sunlight as well as the shifting subtleties of nature's atmosphere.

In 2001 and 2003, Koumjian was awarded by the Mill Atelier Foundation residency grants which enabled her to create the Cavern Series and Santa Fe Details Series.  In 2009, a ten-week residency granted by the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation allowed her to focus on landscapes in the Taos area. Works created during these periods were presented in Inspiration Near & Far at the Mill Fine Art Gallery on Canyon Road.

Jeanette's work has also been featured in Eye of the Beholder, a one-person exhibition at the Armenian Library and Museum of America; Art in the Yard, hosted and curated by The Norman Rockwell Museum; Exhibition of Works on Paper at The Berkshire Museum; and Artists on the Move, an exhibition marking the centennial of Van Gogh's death, at the Salle Polyvalente in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

She has won many awards for her paintings and graphite drawings, including the coveted Horse's Head Award, the Medal of Honor for her drawing "Pick of the Crop II" and the Leila Gardin Sawyer Award from the CLWAC.  "Common Threads Unite Us" received Honorable Mention in The Artist's Magazine National Competition and "Cabin, Ghost Ranch" won the Allied Artists of America Silver Medal of Honor.  Winsor & Newton, the fine art materials company, has twice selected her paintings for its limited edition annual calendars.

Jeanette has served as an Instructor at Pratt Institute where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and was called upon to curate an exhibition of alumni work, including her own.  She is also sought after for private instruction.

Her works are in many corporate and private collections nationwide and can be seen at www.artsicle.com/Jeanette-Koumjian.

Jeanette Koumjian, CLWAC's Honored Member for 2014, richly deserves this accolade for her dedication to arts and artists, her great artistic, communicative, organizational and writing skills, her long-time and continued service to the Club, and her keen intelligence that raises all Board discussions to a level of importance.