Artist Joan Griswold

To Exhibit Paintings of New Orleans

Literary Venues

At Cole-Pratt Gallery/Faulkner Society

2011 Welcome Party

Thursday, November 10, 2011

5:30 to 7:30 p. m.

About the Artist

Joan Griswold was born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1954.  With her family she moved to Rochester, New York and then in 1970 to Kobe, Japan. After graduating from an international high school, she spent a year in Kyoto studying the language and pottery of Japan.  She was graduated from Beloit College in 1977 with a double major in Classics and Studio Art. She spent two months at the Paris American Academy in Paris, France. After a few years of foreign travel she settled in New York where she opened and ran a small art gallery and frame shop for five years. In New York, she also worked as a colorist in a print center. It wasn’t until she moved to the Berkshires in 1986 that she had the time to devote to the mastery of her art. Here, she says, “I taught myself to paint.” After settling in the Berkshires, with a studio on Main Street, she began exhibiting her work. She remains a resident of the area with her husband, Roy Blount Jr. 



About Her Work

Ms. Griswold is known today for her richly colored and textured domestic scenes, as well as exterior architectural works. Bathed in golden light by day, and inviting warmth at night, these pieces evoke comfort, security and a sense of connection to place, while venerating everyday objects, furnishings and dwellings. Though typically without human forms, her “portraits without people” appear lived in, fresh with the imprint of someone who has just left. Rumpled sheets, a well-worn piano, personal papers or an open book on a desk all suggest a personal presence and an intimacy between artist and subject, conveyed to the viewer by way of invitation into private spaces.

Griswold contrasts an underlying, structured, geometric composition with spontaneous, freely expressive brushstrokes. Her compositions explore abstract elements within realistic settings, resulting in a still and spare “quiet elegance,” or “shibui” which she attributes to her early years in Japan.

Ms. Griswold is represented by Hoorn-Ashby in New York and Nantucket and the Marin Price Gallery in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and has been featured in solo exhibitions in New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including the 2002 True Colors: Meditations on the American Spirit exhibition, commencing in Washington, D.C. and traveling to Turkey and Egypt.

Her award-winning work has been featured on cover illustrations for several magazines and acclaimed by many publications including the New York Times.

Her work can be found in many private collections throughout the US and Europe and has

Sample of Her Work To Be Shown

Faulkner House Books by Joan Griswold

Ms. Griswold has done a number of paintings of Faulkner House, 624 Pirate's Alley over the years, two of which, gifts from the artist, are hanging there today.