Comments on: Gretna Campbell

By: Walter Collier Nicolai

Walter Collier Nicolai — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 04:34:32 +0000

I was a student of Gretna Campbell at Yale while doing a Master’s of Divinity Degree, (I later did a Master’s of Fine Art Degree). Gretna Campbell showed me such a generosity of spirit in talking about my drawings. I was shy about my drawings as I had none of the formal training that others in the class had at that time…rather…I had none and I worked hard to improve and to keep up. What I did do though was drive my huge old 67 Dodge Station Wagon out to Long Wharf and do drawings at night of boats in relationship to lights and the pier. Gretna Campbell would say few words but her comments were exacting. She said to me, ” See these three points…these three lights you’ve made specific in this drawing at night? They set up the whole drawing and make it work….lights against the dark.”. Well I was blown away by that comment…for two reasons…one being that I had grown up around a pier at my father’s river taxi on the Delaware near Philadelphia and secondly…that I was doing something very quickly and spontaneously in the front of my old station wagon that seemed not very studio like for Yale and here I was being complimented. It was at a gallery opening of other artists at Bert’s Walkers Gallery in Provincetown that I asked Paul Resika in 2022 if he knew Gretna Campbell. Resika laughed and said enthusiastically…”Yes of course I knew her quite well…and remember her riding her bicycle with a large canvas strapped to her back going out to paint. The canvas was larger than she was but she was determined. Wonderful big paintings of Nature.” I was so filled with joy to hear this from Paul Resika. Her comments to me in the drawing class now made more complete sense. It was the process of going out….into nature…not confined to a studio environment…that resonated with her. So my old station wagon drawings done in the front seat in the rain in the dark by the pier at Long Wharf in New Haven had been an avenue for her to tell me…you have something here…hold on to it.

By: Bill White

Bill White — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:01:34 +0000

Gretna was a unique character with a Dedication to getting to the stage in her paintings where each part expressed a sense of the particular and at the same time became a unique part of a synthesis of the whole composition
Her color is strongly felt and her physicality of the paint makes the painting vibrant with her touch There’s nothing in her work that seems perfunctory as she digs into the picture and the sensation that is informing her
I’m very fortunate women live with her work ( and some of Louis’ paintings too)

We need a monograph on her work as a way to secure her proper place in painting She is a force to be reckoned with
Sadly I didn’t get to study with Gretna yet at PCA I was in a painting class next to her class and just a heavy canvas curtain divided the 2 studios I heard her comments to her students and it spoke volumes to me too

By: Andrew Wykes

Andrew Wykes — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 14:23:37 +0000

yes i was there then.

By: #O66: No News – Fruitful Dark

#O66: No News – Fruitful Dark — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 05:50:46 +0000

[…] recently re-read the post about Gretna Campbell on Painting Perceptions, and each time I look at her paintings I am more and more attracted to the way in which she […]

By: diane drescher

diane drescher — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 01:44:21 +0000

oops–i just noticed the typos.. can i correct my comment?

By: diane drescher

diane drescher — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 01:39:53 +0000

I recently posted a blog about Gretna Campbell at Bowerygallery.wordpress.com. Many Bowery members studied with Gretna at the NYSS and Yale and at Philadelphia College of Art and they share their fond memories, plus there are many good paintings. Many thanks to Henry Finkelstein for supplying these images. Here is the link: https://bowerygallery.wordpress.com/2016/09/22/gretna-campbell-artist-and-teacher/ I invite everyone to read the Bowery blog on our blog I included a link to Painting Perceptions but didn't realize that this site allows comments. How wonderful to read.

By: megan Williamson

megan Williamson — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:26:57 +0000

Janice’s show lead me to this post. I am happy I found it as Gretna was an amazing painter and teacher. And as Gretna stories are beeing collected here, I’d like to add one of my favorites.

This happened in the first weeks of my first term at the NYSS. The model was taking a break and Gretna had us all sit on the floor in front of her to look at a book with a Marquet flag painting. She was on a chair and said (as she pointed), “Here’s a blue, here’s a blue, here’s a blue. See how they make a triangle?” I thought, here I’ve gone all the way through college and I’m back in kindergarden learning my shapes…

The thing is, that was one great triangle and it served me well. With that concept Gretna began teaching me (us) about a whole new level of painting. How lucky we were to have her to pass that information on.

By: Richard Dean

Richard Dean — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:23:39 +0000

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/janice-nowinski_b_1511997.html

Interesting article here in the Huffpo about the painter Janice Nowinski, former student of Gretna Campbell…

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:25:36 +0000

In reply to Robert Bunkin. Robert, I would suggest you speak to Gretna Campbell's son, the painter Henry Finkelstein, you can get his email and contact information on his website. I believe he has photographed and cataloged most of his mother's work and would likely know if she ever painted there.

By: Robert Bunkin

Robert Bunkin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:43:41 +0000

I’d love to know if Gretna Campbell ever painted any Staten Island-based landscapes. I’m curating a show on this theme for 2013 for the Staten Island Museum’s new galleries at Snug Harbor, and would love to include a work by her, if such a work exists.