Up the Block by Rose Frantzen, oil painting, 40 x 50.

Rose Frantzen's peers hold her in especially high regard as an artist's artist. In her 25 years as a full-time painter, she has also gained the attention and respect of both national and international collectors. Her community project, Portrait of Maquoketa, which is comprised of 180 portraits of her townspeople that she painted during impromptu portraiture sessions during the span of one year, was exhibited at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, in Washington DC, from November 2009 until July 2010. The project is also the subject of a hardbound book that was created as a catalogue of sorts to accompany the exhibition.

Frantzen attended the American Academy of Art, in Chicago, where she worked and studied with Robert Krajecki; the Palette & Chisel Academy, alongside her mentor Richard Schmid; and the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, studying human anatomy with the late Dean Keller.

Trained in the alla prima style, she explores painting as a language for witnessing and communicating the wide-range of human experience and sometimes finds it necessary to employ other representational approaches including glazing methods with imprimatura or grisaille.

Her exploratory nature has also led her to create many multi-dimensional works in which she incorporates diverse stylistic elements and mixed media assemblage items such as gilding, stained glass, and mosaic.

Frantzen's work has been featured in numerous publications including American Artist, Workshop, International Artist, Southwest Art, US Art, ArtTalk, and Portrait Signature magazines, and she has demonstrated as a faculty member for the Portrait Society of America. She is a much sought after instructor teaching workshops in several regions of the country as well as in her studio.

With husband and fellow artist, Charles Morris, she currently resides in her hometown of Maquoketa, Iowa. Both are represented by Old City Hall Gallery. For more information on Frantzen, visit her gallery's website or buy her latest art instructional DVD.

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