Vose Galleries is pleased to present an exhibition of over 40 works by the esteemed pastel artist Janet Monafo, created between the early ‘80s and today. A nationally recognized artist with a long list of accolades, Monafo is a member of the Pastel Society of America's Hall of Fame, an honor held by other renowned artists such as William Merritt Chase and Mary Cassatt.
Painted from life from the top floor of her millbuilding studio, Janet Monafo’s pastels make a bold statement and bring a fresh burst of color and dynamism whether they are smaller intimate examples or dramatic large-scale stunners. Capturing the jewel-like tones of elaborately arranged still lifes in her compositions, as well as the fine subtleties of the human form, Monafo says of her work: “I’m most interested in the relationship of colors, the relationship of shapes, and the relationship of textures, and how they contribute to the order of the whole composition.”
Having trained extensively with Margaret Fitzhugh Browne at Fenway Studios, Boston, Monafo’s talents have been rewarded through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Academy of Design and the Adolf and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, among others. Her impressive list of solo exhibitions includes shows at Vose Galleries of Boston, and the J. Cacciola Gallery, Hollis Taggart Gallery, and Sherry French Gallery of New York. Some group exhibition venues include the National Academy of Design, the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, the Mildred Sheets Gallery of Los Angeles, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.