Art Uptown Hosts Reception for Painter Betty Altman

Art Uptown on lower Main Street, Sarasota, will host an artist’s reception for painter Betty Altman on Oct. 15, 6-9 pm at the gallery. The public is invited.

A retrospective exhibition of the paintings of the Sarasota-area artist will be held from Oct. 2 through Oct. 30 at Art Uptown as part of the inaugural Festival sARTée program of events surrounding the Ringling International Arts Festival. Mrs. Altman, who celebrated her 96th birthday with a party at Art Uptown in May, has been exhibiting her paintings there for nearly 30 years, according to Barrington DeMers, Art Uptown president.

“Art Uptown is honored to host this important exhibition of Betty’s works during Festival sARTée, which is intended to showcase the region’s arts and cultural treasures,” said DeMers. “She has been a treasure to Art Uptown for nearly 30 years,” he added, noting that Mrs. Altman was a charter member of Art Uptown, Sarasota’s oldest cooperative fine art gallery, founded in 1981.

DeMers related that the 27 members of Art Uptown unanimously voted in August to make Mrs. Altman an Honorary Life Member, “as a token of our appreciation for her years of support to the gallery, her many achievements in the arts and her dedication to young artists throughout the area whose lives she has touched.”

Mrs. Altman completed a BA degree and did graduate work in French at the University of Rochester in New York before her marriage and move to Chicago in 1939. That same year she entered the Art Institute of Chicago, starting her 70-year-long career as an artist. Her early works were done in oils, mainly figurative portraiture and still life paintings, she recounted.

After moving to Florida in 1975, she took a more abstract, impressionistic approach, expanding into acrylics, watercolors, collage and mono-printing. Later works include images from her frequent travels throughout Europe and beyond, for which she has won top state, national and international honors and ribbons.

“I’ve always tried to stir the mind, stimulate the imagination and pull the viewer into my paintings,” commented the artist, whose paintings have been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally in her long career as a painter. Her favorite exhibits include one at the Centre International de L’Art Contemporain in Paris and another at the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center in New York City, she noted.

Before the Oct. 15 reception, a dinner “GLOW” will be held in Mrs. Altman’s honor at Café Amici, next door to the gallery. Cost is $30 per person, with a choice of three menu selections, DeMers said. Those interested in attending the dinner, planned for 4:30-6 p.m., are asked to call Art Uptown to make reservations at (941) 955-5409.

Art Uptown, located at 1367 Main St., Sarasota, between Palm and Pineapple avenues, is operated by 27 member artists, who exhibit a broad range of art works – from paintings, photography, colored pencil drawings and mixed media works to stained glass, sculpture and fine ceramics. The gallery’s summer hours are Tuesday-Friday, 11-5, and Saturday, 10-4. During the monthly First Friday Gallery Walk, hours are 6-9 p.m. Telephone 941-955-5409. Website: www.artuptown.com.