Georgia McGovern, NYSS MFA 2019, RBF Resident 2022

I first learned about the late artist Rosemarie Beck during my undergraduate studies at The Art Institute of Chicago in an art history class focused on the New York poets and painters. While the class primarily highlighted well-known figures like John Ashbery and Fairfield Porter, Rosemarie Beck’s work and story left a lasting impression on me. Originally trained as a violinist, Rosemarie did not turn to painting until her move to Woodstock in the late 1940s. There, she met Philip Guston and Bradley Walker Tomlin, who inspired her to dedicate her life to painting, a medium that would motivate and challenge her for the rest of her life. I had just become old enough to legally sign a lease at that time, excited and daydreaming about the future of having my own painting studio, never considering that I would be working in Rosemarie Beck’s nearly a decade later.

In 2022, I was invited to work in the former studio of Rosemarie Beck through a partnership between the New York Studio School and the Rosemarie Beck Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving Beck’s work and legacy. The studio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan appeared essentially unchanged. Stepping inside felt like entering a portal that transported me back in time, where layers of peeling paint and dented crown molding served as reminders of years past. The only change, a significant one at that, is a hall of painting racks to store and catalog a lifetime of drawings, prints, collages, and paintings. Not to mention drawers of journals, boxes of handmade models, and still-life objects. In awe, I felt a series of conflicting emotions: inspired, curious, nervous, and intimidated, but mainly motivated to commit my time to my own art practice and the outreach of Beck’s work.

When Rosemarie first moved to New York City from Woodstock, she was an emerging Abstract Expressionist. Her work was featured in exhibitions at the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Art Institute of Chicago. She gained gallery representation and invitations to artist residencies and earned prestigious teaching opportunities. However, feeling disenchanted with abstraction, Rosemarie boldly took the “risk” of transitioning towards figuration despite representational work being out of vogue and the effect on her career due to this switch. This courageous change did not hinder her ability to continue creating art; if anything, it energized her to work harder. Her dedication and independence in pursuing her own path, despite cultural, institutional, or market trends and pressures, is incredibly inspiring and would still present a challenging transition today.

During my first few months at the Rosemarie Beck Foundation, I cataloged works and curated a show of her lesser-known embroidery works in the studio. With the help and guidance of her granddaughter, Doria Hughes, the Foundation’s Director and Collection Manager, I was provided with relevant journal entries, background information, and portfolio boxes where I might find connections and details about this mysterious part of her practice. I did numerous of these types of research projects over the following two years, collaborating with Doria to put together various pieces of the puzzle and learning a great deal about her daily practice in writing and drawing. Her writings provided insight into her life and struggle as a woman in art, as a mother, and in sharing her work in the art world. Journal entries that discussed issues in form, color, and mark reinforced the importance of fundamentals of visual language. At the same time, notes on her conceptual and philosophical interests and questions of style assured my own concerns and conflicts in painting. Her iterations of decades of drawings and paintings revealed mastery, control, and confidence and inspired me to work often but more methodically and slower. Slowness, Rosemarie mentions, in drawing and painting permeates an artist’s life, and seeking out obstacles to be confronted with serves in the interest of accuracy and honesty achieved in art.

Georgia McGovern

Georgia McGovern, The Green Ray, RBF Residency Exhibition 2024 Catalogue

Rosemarie Beck Foundation Studio Artist-in-Residence

The Rosemarie Beck Foundation has partnered with the New York Studio School to offer NYSS MFA graduates the opportunity to participate in the Rosemarie Beck Foundation Studio Artist-in-Residence. The Rosemarie Beck Foundation (RBF) is a nonprofit organization that honors and promotes the values, ideals and combined artistic-pedagogic-literary output of the artist and former NYSS teacher Rosemarie Beck (1923-2003). The RBF Collection – housed in Beck’s former studio space – contains an extraordinary selection of Beck’s paintings, textiles and works on paper. The RBF strives to inspire and support serious artists by providing them with an ideal space in which to cultivate and develop their own artwork, while learning and applying collections management and exhibition skills in the RBF Collection. The program offers studio privileges and immersive access to the Rosemarie Beck Foundation Collection and Archives to a qualified painter who has applied for the position and been selected, following review, by the RBF Board.