Rosita Gottlieb's Art of the Rainforest

About Rosita Gottlieb

Costa Rica-born Rosita Gottlieb has painted professionally since 1963 and over the years mastered the art of painting with the spatula, the artist's knife.

Rosita has gained a reputation as a bold colorist. Her primary medium is oil, to which she adds marble sand, wire mesh, beeswax and other materials, to create rich, dimensional, thickly-textured expressionistic canvases.
Rosita studied at the Art Students League in New York with Hans Hoffman and other outstanding teachers, and later in Mexico at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. In Mexico, she also worked and studied under David Alfredo Siquieros, one of the greatest muralist of the century.

Since her first showing at the National Art Institute in Panama City in 1963, she has been the featured artist in exhibitions worldwide, including London, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Taipei, Los Angeles, and San Jose, Costa Rica.

Throughout her career, Rosita and her work have been the subject of many articles and television reports. In recent years, her continuing series on the rainforest has been featured in many publications, including a cover article in "Hemispheres" Magazine, the inflight magazine of United Airlines, the Los Angeles Times, the American Club Magazine of Hong Kong, Taiwan's foremost art magazine, and in LACSA's World, the inflight publication of Costa Rica's national airline. In 1999, a special report on her work was featured on Los Angeles' Spanish-language
Channel 52.

For more information on Rosita Gottlieb, email rositagottlieb@sbcglobal.net

CRITICS COMMENTS

"Her jammy colors bubble and eddy across extraordinary canvases."
– James Heard, London Arts Review

"She is expressionistic in technique, using the paint freely and loosely with vibrant contrasted complementary colors. The staple evocation of these paintings is of a brooding mood of power. Change of scale is Rosita's main weapon and the means by which she arrests our attention...(with her) colorful fantasies."
– Toby Joysmith, Mexico City News

"...The poetic projections of her representations of reality are enhanced by a perfect management of color combinations."
– Margarita Nelken, Mexico City Excelsior

"The longer one looks at her paintings, the more one is aware of her coloristic values."
-- Miriam Tal, Yediot Aharonot, Tel Aviv

"Her pictures are startling in their boldness of color and composition. All of her canvases throw the imagination into the throes of the unknown."
– Barbara Kimenye, Nairobi Daily Nation

"(Her rainforest paintings) "are bold, gestural, colorful compositions that sing out with verdant life and vitality."
– Art Scene Magazine, Los Angeles

"...Gottlieb's expressionistic paintings are a visual diary of her relentless spiritual search...(she uses the knife) to create a rich, hypnotic, multidimensional effect."
– Aubrey Simpson, Hemispheres Magazine

MAJOR INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

– Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Panama City, 1963.
– Galeria Excelsior, Mexico City, 1965.
– Galeria Chapultepec of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1966.
– Galeria de May Brooks, Mexico City, 1966.
– Galeria del Centro Deportivo Israelita, Mexico City, 1967.
– Galeria Lepe, Puerto Vallarta, 1968.
– Galeria Chapultepec of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1969.
– Galeria Barrilaco, Mexico City, 1970.
– Galeria del Centro Deportivo Israelita, Mexico City, 1971.
– Haramati Gallery, Tel Aviv, 1972.
– Old Jaffo Gallery, Tel Aviv, 1973.
– Woodstock Gallery, London, 1973.
– Israel Philharmonic, Tel Aviv, honoring Maestro Mikhail Rostropovich, 1974.
– University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1975.
– Los Angeles Public Library, 1976.
– S. Harris Gallery, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, 1977.
– Wexler-Weiss Gallery, Encino, 1978.
– Galeria Wolmy, Mexico City, 1979.
– Galeria del Centro Deportivo Israelita, Mexico City, 1979.
– Galeria Wolmy, Mexico City, 1980.
– Westwood Center of the Arts, Los Angeles, 1981.
– Senior Eye Gallery, Long Beach, 1982.
– Galeria Mer-Kup, Mexico City, 1983.
– Galeria Wolmy, Mexico City, 1983.
– Mexican-North American Institute, Mexico City, 1983.
– Design Center Theater Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 1985.
– Palmcrest House Senior Eye Gallery, Long Beach, 1987.
– Celebrity benefit screening of "At Play In The Field of the Lord," for Universal Studios and
– Rainforest Action Network, Los Angeles, December 1991.
– 201 California Gallery, San Francisco, March 1992.
– Palmcrest House Senior Eye Gallery, Long Beach, November 1992.
– Lakes Gallery International, Taipei (Taiwan), May 1993.
– National Audubon Society, Los Angeles, May 1995.
– Artinasia Gallery, Hong Kong, December 1995-January 1996.
– Tustin Renaissance Gallery, Tustin, May-June 1996.
– Blue Moon Gallery, Santa Monica, Summer 1998.
– Galeria Sister Karen Boccalero, Olvera Street, Los Angeles, Summer 1999.
– Galeria del Mundo, EcoStation, Culver City, February 2001.

SELECTED COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

– Mexico City Municipal Gallery of Art, 1966.
– Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, "Women in the arts," 1968, 1967.
– Galeria Aleph, Mexico City, 1970.
– The City of Tel Aviv (Israel), City Hall, 1972.
– The City of Tiberias (Israel), City Hall, 1972.
– Laguna Beach Museum of Art Invitational, 1976.
– Riggs Gallery, San Diego, Thoroughbred Racing Exhibit, 1980.
– Museum of Science and Industry, Artists Equity Salute to Los Angeles Bicentennial, November 1980.
– National University of Mexico, "Race, racism, genocide and holocaust," 1981.
– Brand Library, Glendale, Artists Equity Collective, 1982.
– Laguna Beach Museum of Art Invitational, 1984.
– Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, "Winter '85 Art Show."
– Gordon Gallery, Santa Monica, 1991.
– Lakes Gallery International, Taipei, August 1993.
– Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fine Arts Gallery, Hong Kong, and Lakes Gallery International, Taipei, January 1994.
– American Club, Hong Kong, May 1994.
– Opts Gallery, San Francisco, December 1994.
– Artinasia Gallery, Hong Kong, October 1995.
– Ladie John Dill Studio (benefitting Rainforest Action Network), Venice, CA, November 1995.
– Artinasia Gallery, Hong Kong, March 1996.
– Tustin Rennaissance Gallery, July-September 1996.
– The Children's Museum (Museo del Nino), San Jose, Costa Rica, November 1997.
– Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach (California), March 2004.

COLLECTIONS

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
The Museum of the Holocaust, Jerusalem.
Museum of Modern Art, Jerusalem.
Estate of the late Mexican President Lopez Mateos.
Palmcrest House Convalescent Home, Long Beach, California.
Whoopi Goldberg