Welcome to the exclusive online home of Margaret Kennedy @ be dot gallery
Margaret Kennedy currently resides in Burkittsville, Maryland, and has a studio gallery called Brushmark. She brings forty years experience as a professional artist - teaching, exhibiting nationally and creating leaded stained glass — to the Frederick art community.
She is native to Rochester, New York, and received her BA degree (1952) in music at Wells College in the Finger Lakes. Though she practiced drawing, painting and sculpture throughout her early years, she began formal training only as a graduate student at Obelrin College in Ohio. She received her MA degree there in 1955 and went on to complete her MFA in 1963 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Margaret Kennedy and Calvin Edward Ramsburg
The I960’s and 1970's were years of teaching and of the design and fabrication of leaded stained glass commissioned by churches in New York, Ohio, Indiana and Utah. Stained glass, particularly work in the Medieval French blues for which she acquired some fame, was the driving focus of this time. It was also the time when painting of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists and California Bay Area artists began to influence fresh ways of seeing.
The 1980's took new directions with an MDiv. (1983) in Counseling and Biblical Studies. She gave serious consideration to certification as a registered Art Therapist (ATR). While working in Connecticut, she obtained studio privileges at the University of Bridgeport and began to paint again seriously. She then decided to “retire” and devote full-time to art -- doing it and teaching it.
Her styles are derivative but not imitative. Prints are reminiscent of Rembrandt and Roualt while her paintings owe Mitchell (white grounds), Hoffmann (primary colors), Rothko (soft surfaces), Diebenkorn (landscapes) and Rauschenberg (rich color and collage).
Energy and direct emotional impact mark her recent work and suggest the direction of an emerging mature style. The current exhibition combines lyrical abstraction with her early passion for classical music.
In 2002, Margaret was the recipient of a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Read more about it here.
See a sample of Margaret’s work below:
