Draft:Judith Carducci

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File:Judith Carducci Photo for wikipedia.jpg

Judith Carducci at her kitchen easelBorn: February 25, 1935, Norwood, MassachusettsDied: August 8, 2023, Hudson, Ohio Alma Mater: University of Maine, BA, Columbia University, MSKnown for: Portrait Artist, Pastel ArtistAwards: Best in Show, Portrait Society of America, 1999 Website: judithcarducci.com

Judith Carducci (February 25, 1935 – August 8, 2023), the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Portrait Artist World, was an American pastel portrait artist and instructor, born in New England, who worked and lived in Hudson, Ohio.

Judith Carducci, along with Everett Kinstler, Burton Silverman, Daniel Greene and others, was a founding member of the Portrait Society of America. A Signature Status Member, she served on the faculty and board of directors from 2000 until 2020.

An advocate for women artists at the Portrait Society of America, she and president, Ed Jonas, co-founded and chaired the Cecilia Beaux Forum Sub-Committee in 2005 to address the issues women portrait artists face in a male-dominated profession.

Carducci also worked to advance the status of the soft-pastel medium as equal to oil painting in fine art. Always referring to her pastel work as “paintings” and the medium as “soft pastel,” never chalk, she said, “…chalk is for sidewalks and blackboards”

A published author in sociology and art, writing her 2022 autobiography, “Role Reversal, My Life In-Out-In Art,” was the first written by a woman artist since Cecilia Beaux’ “Background with Figures”. Louis Zona, Museum Director of the Butler Institute of American Art, compared Carducci's book to the writings of Robert Henri, author of “The Art Spirit”

Life and career

Judith Carducci was born Judith Weeks Barker to Harold O. Barker and Catherine Elizabeth (née Stone), in Norwood, Massachusetts on February 25^th, 1935. Growing up in Walpole, Massachusetts, during the Depression and then World War II developed her acute sense of empathy, courage, justice and activism, and also her desire to create.

Her art training began at the age of five, with local artist Blanche W. Plimpton whom she studied with until the age of 17. As a teenager Carducci also studied with Mel Chevers, an artist on the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design, the institution Judy was to attend upon finishing High School. Her interest in portraiture and learning to draw and paint realistically was not supported at RISD, where the painting department encouraged abstraction. Disillusioned by the art world, Judy transferred to University of Maine and majored in Sociology. She graduated in 1956 with High Honors, Highest Distinction, a Phi Beta Kapa Key and acceptance to Columbia University’s graduate school of Social Work. She graduated from Columbia in 1958 with an MS in psychiatric social work, with a full two-year scholarship from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Thus began Judith Carducci’s almost 30-year career as a social worker at the VA Clinics in New Jersey and Cleveland, where she was also an instructor at Case Western Reserve University. She co-authored “The Caring Classroom: For Teachers Troubled by Difficult Student and Classroom Disruption” with her husband, Dewey Carducci.

It wasn’t until she fully retired from her career as a social worker in 1988, and her husband passed away from a long illness (page 150) that she was able to fully focus on her first love, art.

Judith studied Figure Drawing with George Danhires, at University of Akron from 1995 to 1998 and took private lessons with Daniel Greene, NA, in 1995 and 1996. She also attended workshops with Albert Handel, Don Getz, Burton Silverman, NA, and Martin Campos.

Carducci was a finalist in the Washington DC Society of Portrait Artists national exhibition, for her portrait of “Max with his Grandfather’s Tallis” juried by William Draper, known as the “Dean of American Portrait Painters.” She was recognized in Who’s Who in American Art, and was featured in American Artist Magazine, The Artists Magazine, The Pastel Journal, Pastelagram: Journal of the Pastel Society of America, International Artist, and The Art of the Portrait, The Members Journal of the Portrait Society of America).

An early career milestone was to win the 1999 Best of Show at the first Portrait Society of America International Conference in Washington DC for her pastel portrait of an inner-city high school student and his mother; “Mother and Son.” This painting now hangs in the permanent collection of the University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, MaineIn the tradition of the American Ashcan School art movement, Judy’s conjecture was that portraiture should not only extend to those able to afford a commissioned portrait. At Portrait Society of America Conferences and Carducci's workshops, she always posed live models of all physical characteristics and backgrounds, her subjects, "every bit as beautiful, interesting, deserving of being painted” as those who could afford to commission a portrait.

In 2008, Judith Carducci played the role of a courtroom artist in a commercial featuring LeBron James for Vitamin Water. the sketches that resulted from this effort now hang in LeBron James' home.

Carducci worked to advance the status of the soft pastel medium as equal to oil painting in fine art. She bristled at the use of the word “chalk” to describe the soft pastels she used to create her portraits. She said, “…chalk is for sidewalks and blackboards.” She advocated for pastels to the director of the very first iteration of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, now held every three years at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. She entered her pastel portrait, “The Widow.” At the time it was a “paintings only” competitive exhibition. The director called her personally to let her know why her work would not be accepted; it was not a “painting.” Judy argued that in fact, a pastel IS a painting, invoking the authority of the Pastel Society of America and its founder, based on the fact that it began with wet media and utilized the full range of colors as oil and watercolor paintings do. Despite her arguments, her painting was ultimately not accepted to the show.

“The Widow” is now part of the permanent collection of the Butler Institute of American Art, and was exhibited with fellow portrait artists from the permanent collection, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Flora B. Giffuni, Harvey Dinnerstein and Isabel Bishop as part of “The Figure-The Face: Pastels from the Butler’s Collection in March 2024.”

In September 2011, Carducci, along with Butler Museum Director, Louis Zona and sculptor, Rhoda Sherbell, juried “Inspiring Figures,” in conjunction with the Cecila Beaux Forum of the Portrait Society of America, at the Butler Institute of American Art. The goal was to give women figurative artists the spotlight. Work from contemporary masters such as Mary Whyte, Ellen Eagle and Sharon Sprung and were hung alongside work by historic American artists, Cecilia Beaux, Mary Cassatt and Alice Ruggles Sohier, from the Butler Institute Collection.

Judith Carducci has had a solo exhibition; “As She Sees It” at Hillsdale College and two at the Moos Gallery of Western Reserve Academy. The most notable of her solo shows, however, was in May 2015 when the the Butler Institute of American Art hosted Carducci’s solo exhibiton at their Flora B. Giffuni Pastel Gallery. Upon seeing her 2015 solo show at the Butler Institute of Art, Marlene Steele, Ohio Ambassador for the Portrait Society of America writes:

“Carducci’s prize-winning work is recognized for her good grounding in solid draughtsmanship and spot-on sense of color, both attributes a product of years of drawing from life.  Carducci also presents her personal perspectives on whatever she makes, whether it is still life, landscape, figure and portrait, and relishes the act of doing so.”

Steele commented on Carducci’s portrait of museum director, Louis Zona too, which was painted from life as a public demonstration…as Carducci insisted.

“The congenial visage of Louis Zona commands the Giffuni Gallery with softly smiling eyes, his folded arms’ stance further reflecting his positive attitude. The Director’s 4′ square three quarter length portrait is placed against a portion of the camel/orange and silvery black Motherwell abstract, a wall of commanding work in the Institute’s permanent collection.”

After posing, Zona told a local newspaper he has a newfound respect for those who pose from life for a portrait.

“I didn’t realize how tough it is to be a model, when you’re asked to stand and not move for three hours,” he said. “You get to realizing how many places can itch and how much back pain you can get from standing.”

Louis Zona stated that he hopes the portrait will end up in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, for now it remains in a private collection.

In 2022, Judith Carducci wrote her autobiography, “Role Reversal: My Life In-Out-In Art.”

In 2023, she wrote, “Steel Table Still Lives: Reflections”. The book is a collection of the still life paintings she created while isolating during the pandemic when painting models from life was difficult. Carducci also “shared practical advice regarding the nuts and bolts of working in pastel, settin up a studio, care of materials, procedures and how to navigate working in different locations.”

Judith Carducci's final public performance was when she posed on the main stage for a live portrait demonstration by portrait artists, Rose Frantzen and Jeffrey Hein at the Portrait Society of America conference in Washington DC, May 2023. Carducci chatted with the artists and audience throughout the demonstration and, when requested to do so, recited her favorite Rudyard Kipling poem from memory, “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted: L’Envoi.” The words of this poem, are about a heaven for artists where “the youngest critic has died,” a place where “no one shall work for money and no one shall work for fame.” Artists here will paint for eternity, “without exhaustion…with brushes of comet’s hair.” This poem was inspiration for her “Vanitas III-Self Portrait at 80” (page 154) altarpiece that was shown at Judith’s Solo show at the Butler Institute of American Art.

When Hein and Frantzen had finished their portraits in the 2 hours allowed, Judith Carducci launched her autobiography with a book signing of, “Role Reversal: My Life In-Out-In Art”.

Judith Carducci passed away 3 months later at the age of 88, peacefully in her sleep.

Quotes

“An acknowledged master of pastel, Judith Carducci is immediate and personal in all aspects of her art and life. That is abundantly clear in the text and illustrations in the glorious new book…readers become acquainted with the struggles, heartbreaks, joys and triumphs of a woman who remains dedicated to her art. She is, like her paintings, direct and inspiring.”

M. Stephen Doherty, Former Editor in Chief of the American Artist and Plein Air Magazines

“I have long thought of Judy Carducci as the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Portrait Artist World. She is tiny, mighty, outspoken, honest, intuitive, insightful, an inspiring artistic force and not shy about expressing a dissenting opinion.”

Judy Takács, Figurative and Portrait Artist

Professional Honors:

Signature Member, Pastel Society of America

Signature and Founding Member, Faculty, Board, Portrait Society of America

Emeritus Member, Salmagundi Club

Emeritus Member, Signature Member, Board Member, Akron Society of Artists

Juried Member, Cincinnati Art Club, Degas Pastel Society

Awards:

Best in Show, Portrait Society of America International Competition, 1999, Washington, DC

Popular Choice: Portrait Society of America Face-Off Competition, National Conference, 2009

Bibliography:

Role Reversal: My Life In-Out-In Art, 2022, Little Red Hen Publication

Steel Table Still Lives, 2023, Little Red Hen Publication

External links

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