Janet Shaw Amtmann

Janet Shaw Amtmann began painting when she was 6 years old in Sarasota, Florida. Her mother, a landscape and portrait artist became her teacher. They would have afternoon tea together and she would listen while her mother talked about her day painting Florida landscapes. Smelling that lovely scent of oil paint, made Janet want to take the brushes and dip them into the oils and paint. And so it began.

When Janet was 14, she began to study seriously with Syd Solomon, an abstract expressionist; Hilton Leech, a renowned landscape watercolorist and later Marilyn Bendell, a famous portrait painter. A deep friendship developed with these artists during this time, and she was encouraged to show her work. She signed my name as “J. Shaw” and continues to do so today.

After a career in business and nurturing a family, she retired and closed her advertising agency in Del Mar, Ca. Retirement for her meant returning to painting. She moved to Santa Fe, NM in 2001, and began to paint with pastel artists, Kathleen Gray Schallock and Anita Louise West. Pastels lend themselves to the earth tones, dusty roads, adobes, and mountains of New Mexico. Her work is created on site, immediate and impressionistic.

She is represented by the Southwest American Art Gallery in Albuquerque, NM. She has had many exhibitions including the Fourth Annual Northeast National Pastel Exhibit in Old Forge, NY, in May and June, 2008; Pastels USA, The Pastel Society of the West Coast, at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA in May and June, 2008; Traditional Fine Arts and Crafts, at the Art Center at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, NM in May and June, 2008; and The Ninth International Juried Exhibition for Pastels Only, Pastel Painters of Maine, in July and August, 2008.

Visit her website.

Amtmann says:

"My work carries with it the whispered teachings of many artists I have known, and the joy and excitement I feel when confronted with the natural world that is New Mexico. I shun painting from photographs in the studio and receive my inspiration directly from nature. Because I was originally an oil painter, I apply my pastels as if they were brushes creating an impression of the day’s weather, light and sounds. The majority of my work is done in soft pastel."