News Release

March 7, 2007

Contact: Jane Shaskan, 860-679-4777
e-mail: shaskan@nso.uchc.edu

Paintings and Prints Highlighted at LeWitt Gallery

WHAT: Paintings by Francine Liftig, “Shapes on Canvas”
Prints by Joan Cole, “Mountains and Hills”

WHERE: Celeste LeWitt Gallery at the University of Connecticut Health Center
263 Farmington Ave., Farmington

WHEN: March 8 through June 6, daily 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

About the artists:

Francine Liftig is fascinated with interactions of people, expressing her observations “more effectively in paint than in words.” In her paintings, characters are captured in a moment of intense emotion, or activity, inviting the viewer to ask: “What’s going on, and what might happen?”

Liftig, who lived in Sarasota, Fla., for 10 years, won many awards and prizes from the Manatee Art League in Bradenton, Fla., the Longboat Art Association in Longboat Key, Fla., and the Sarasota Art Association, to name a few. She was a member of the National League of American Pen Women in Washington, D.C., and the Sarasota Art Association Petticoat Painters.

Currently an Avon resident, Liftig has also won awards from the West Hartford Art League and the Wintonbury Art League in Bloomfield. She is a member of the Connecticut Watercolor Society and the West Hartford Art League. Her works are in private collections coast to coast and in Paris and Nice.

A graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Joan Cole taught art in public and private schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts and served as curator of Jorgensen Gallery at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. After years of painting, she went on to study lithography at the University of New Mexico and the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, and later was an associate printmaker at the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1993, Cole established Geaster Printmaking Studio in Mansfield Center, Conn.

She has participated in solo exhibitions at the First Church Gallery in Springfield, Mass., the Munson Gallery in New Haven, the Digital Corporation in Marlborough, Mass., and the Homer Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Cole has won awards from Connecticut Women Artists and the Artwork Gallery in Hartford, the West Hartford Art League, the New Haven Paint and Clay Club and the Chautauqua National Exhibition of American Art in Chautauqua, N.Y. She is a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Connecticut Women Artists, the Print Club of Albany, the Southern Graphics Council, Athens, Ga., and Printmakers Network of Southern New England, Hampton, Conn.

The University of Connecticut Health Center’s collection of fine arts serves to enhance the environment and promote the sense of a caring community for patients, visitors, staff and students. Art is selected, acquired and exhibited by the UCHC Art Advisory Committee. To view a selection of the Health Center’s permanent collection visit: www.uchc.edu/auxiliary/art.html.

The University of Connecticut Health Center includes the schools of medicine and dental medicine, John Dempsey Hospital, the UConn Medical Group and University Dentists. Founded in 1961, the Health Center pursues a mission of providing outstanding health care education in an environment of exemplary patient care, research and public service. To learn more about the UConn Health Center, visit our website at www.uchc.edu.

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