Upcoming Exhibit:

The Whole Gamut: Realism to Abstraction

Karen Rosasco

Runs: February 22 - May 23

Meet the Artist: March 8, 2021, 5:00 - 7:00 pm

(with all Covid-19 safety protocols in place)

Karen Rosasco is an award-winning water media artist. She has provided art instruction for adults in both evening courses and workshops for nearly thirty years. As a retired high school art teacher and self-described shape maker, she emphasizes design and composition as the foundation for the symbols placed on paper or canvas. She is an avid traveler, always on the hunt for new and unusual subjects to use as themes for her paintings.  

Karen is a Signature Member of the American Watercolor Society. Her work has been exhibited in regional and national juried shows including the American Watercolor Society, Salmagundi Club, and Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Exhibitions in NYC, in corporate collections at General Electric, Harcourt Brace Education Testing, UVA McIntire School of Commerce, UVA Breast Cancer Center, Augusta Health, and Sentara/Martha Jefferson, and in private collections in the U.S., Europe and South America.

Several national publications have featured her paintings including: The Palette, Southwest Art, and American Artist Watercolor magazines. Karen is represented by the Abend Gallery-Denver, CO; SVAC-Waynesboro, VA; CoArt Gallery-Staunton, VA; Crossroads Art Center Gallery-Richmond, VA and by appointment in her home in Waynesboro, VA.

SELECT WORKS BY KAREN ROSASCO:

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Coming Soon:

Augusta County Historical Society

“Painters & Printers”

Waynesboro artists

Charles Smith and George Speck

Runs: May 27 – August 22, 2021

Meet the Artist: June 7, 2021, 5:00 - 7:00 pm

(with all Covid-19 safety protocols in place)

Although neither Charles Smith nor his student George Speck were born in Waynesboro (Smith was born in Lofton in Augusta County and Speck was born in Charlottesville), the nurturing environment of the industrial boom town of early 20th-century Waynesboro shaped the personalities and the art of both men. Each man dabbled in a variety of media, but both won lasting fame for their sophisticated and intricate block printing, a skill that has its roots in the factories and foundries along the South River.

In early 2020, The Augusta County Historical Society will be presenting an extensive exhibit featuring the lives and art of artists Smith and Speck in its History Gallery at the R.R. Smith Center in downtown Staunton. In late May, select art pieces and exhibit panels from that exhibit will move to the gallery at the Wayne Theatre in an on-going cooperative exhibit sharing arrangement that the two groups have developed.

Smith, the older of the two artists featured in the exhibit, was born in 1893, a little more than 30 years before Speck. The lives of the two men traveled in intersecting circles with Smith becoming Speck’s art teacher and mentor. Both had connections to Fairfax Hall, the girls’ school in Waynesboro, both were connected to the University of Virginia, and both were so heavily influenced by the industrial shops of Waynesboro and Basic City, where wood carving and metal engraving took place daily, that they became known particularly for their sophisticated block printing.

Smith completed thousands of prints during his career. He also authored several books, including one on linoleum block printing. His book, Old Virginia in Block Prints, was chosen as one of the top 50 books of the year in 1929. He also published two books of animal block paintings, Animal Fare and My Zoological Garden.

Speck’s publications included 250 pen-and-ink drawings for Dell Publications’ Look and Learn French, as well as illustrations for school catalogues. He wrote numerous articles for the Journal of Art Therapy. Widely acclaimed as a multi-media artist, he was renowned as a prolific, versatile painter, carver of fine woodcuts, sculptor of ingenious papier mâché figures, and accomplished print maker. He was most proud of the woodcuts. He held more than 40 one-man shows in the U.S. and abroad.

The exhibit will be in the Wayne Theatre gallery from May 27 through August 22.

An opening exhibit reception will be held on June 7 at the Wayne from 5-7 p.m. Both the exhibit in Staunton and the one in Waynesboro are free and open to the public.

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SELECT PRESENTATIONS: