Benita Gaudier (b. 1946) American, Large Oil on Canvas. Depicts nine different breeds of dogs in the back of a car with an opening rear hatch window.  Title from Gaudier's website: "Kristy's Critters" (Commission). Signed bottom right. Signed on stretcher as well. 

Size: 48 X 36 in. 

Depth: 1 1/2 in. 

#3816 . 

Benita Gaudier was born in Port Clinton, Ohio in 1946. She began her art training at a very young age, studying privately from twelve onward as well as taking lessons in dance and sewing. Her first sold artwork was when she was thirteen, when her father displayed a painted rooster in the window of shoe store and a patron purchased it. She spent her teens exploring many facets of art, primarily focused on still lifes, and studied portraiture in the late 1960s with Walter Chapman. In 1971 she studied painting at Memphis Academy of Art, where she first found an interest in interior design. She moved to California in the mid 1970s, and enrolled at the Design Institute of San Diego in 1978, where she focused on Interior Design and Architecture with a minor focus on fine art. After graduating in 1983 she designed many professional renderings of buildings and interior spaces which in turn influenced her painting techniques. Throughout the 1990s into the 2000s she traveled extensively in England and France, and her paintings of cities and villages of those countries wound up in over 200 private and corporate collections. From 1991 to 1994 she taught interior architecture at UC Berkeley, and had her first solo show in San Francisco in 1993. In 1997 she opened her own art gallery, where she exhibited her own work as well as other local artists, and offered classes in the adjacent studio. By the 2000s she was able to concentrate on art full time, although she continued to work in design for a handful of companies including Charles Schwab and Ruth Livingston Studios. Her most recent works are primarily portraits of animals, and she is well-known for his vibrant, colorful, whimsical portrayals of dogs, cats, barnyard animals, and more. She continues to work from her home in San Anselmo, where she also teaches private watercolor classes.