Artist Bio: Renée Radell
This artist bio is arranged by decade to provide information about the dramatic life developments of American contemporary artist Renée Radell. With roots in Detroit, Michigan and trained at the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts, Radell was a consistent award-winning watercolorist represented in the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Dearborn art Museum and the Walter P. Chrysler Museum.
While raising a family of five with husband and sculptor Lloyd Radell, she achieved mainstream representation in the New York art scene in the 1960s, where she was critically acclaimed for her powerful social commentary figurative paintings during the time of the Vietnam War and social unrest. Radell moved to New York in 1984 where she continued a prolific painting career until the present time.
Over a 70 year painting career, Renée Radell has never ceased to delight audiences and collectors with her signature combination of consummate aesthetic prowess and insightful comments concerning the human condition.
(Scroll down for details by decade)
Early Years
Renée Radell was born in Birmingham, Alabama and moved to Detroit as a toddler. She became an award-winning watercolorist while attending the prestigious art school of Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts.
1950s
For Renée Radell, life in the 1950s meant beginning a family of five children in rural Michigan while attracting critical acclaim for her move to social commentary figurative oil painting on the path to New York.
1960s
Our artist bio reveals international recognition and mainsteam New York gallery representation in the turbulent 1960s for Radell with insightful themes of American family life amidst the angst of a war-torn political environment.
1970s
For the artist, the 1970s was a balanced journey into painting societal confusion and search for meaning, while maintaining positive elements of hope for the progress of humanity.
1980s
The allure of the New York contemporary art scene caused a move to Greenwhich Village where Radell created new allegorical paintings while teaching at Parsons School of Design and cityscape and landscape painting in pleinair Europe.
1990s
For Renée Radell, the 1990s was a period of tremendous productivity from her Manhattan East Village art studio, creating multiple series of ” visual morality plays” using myth, symbol and allegory
2000s
Her studio move to the vibrant Manhattan Chelsea art community in the new millennium was for Radell a challenge to to expand her allegorical and surrealism imagery to murals and triptychs.
2010+
Since 2010, Renée Radell continues her visual search for life’s meaning through new creative dimensions, such as heightened use of mixed media and sculpture, and addressing color, form and composition in multiple painting series of abstract art.
