Ann Eckert Keenan (American, 1904 to 1982)
Ann Eckert Keenan was born in New York City in 1904. She studied at the Art Students League, the Pratt Institute and the Grand Central Art School. She also studied with Xavier Gonzales and Eliot O’Hara, even starring in O’Hara’s documentary film entitled Painting With Lacquer. She traveled extensively throughout Europe and had her own atelier in Paris. Back in New York in the 1930s-1950, she found work as a freelance artist and became a well-known children’s book illustrator.
In 1951 she married Joe Keenan and moved to Miami where she was active in the Southern Florida art scene until her death in 1982. She exhibited extensively throughout Florida including the Fort Lauderdale Museum of the Arts, Daytona Art Center and the Miami Museum of Modern Art. She won two Beaux Arts Prizes from the Lowe Art Gallery and was also included in an exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City.
Her painting style is abstract showing influences of Braque and Picasso probably gained from her time in Europe. It has been referred to as figurative expressionism and incorporates features from cubism, fauvism and expressionism.
Information courtesy of Charlton hall Galleries Inc., June 2012.