Betty Guy (20th Century) American, "Ponte Sisto Rome" Signed Original Watercolor. Signed and titled lower left.
Overall Size: 8 3/4 x 10 in.
Sight Size: 3 5/8 x 5 1/8 in.
Betty Guy (American, 20th-21st Century) is an artist primarily known for her international cityscape and landscape watercolors in pen & ink, as well as illustration work, monotype prints as well as limited edition prints.
She was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, and still resides there in a home high on a hill, with a spectacular view that overlooks San Francisco. "Watercolor has to happen almost magically," she says. "Watercolor is its own master--you go along with it". Betty doesn't go anywhere without her trusted pens from Paris and a bottle of ink, ready to paint and sketch, in whatever city she seems to find herself in. She travels to Europe often on annual trips and stays in hotels or inns that have a view outside their windows, "I love finding a room with a view, so rain or snow I can still work," she says."Her work is full of sunlight and air, the vagabond's feeling of freedom and as she expresses it 'the face of history in a facade.'" Betty went to Lowell High School and later studied at San Francisco State University and later entered the University of California at Berkeley for graduate work, taking art classes. She also furthered her studies at the Art Students' League in NYC, and at the Alliance Francaise and at the L'Académie de la Grande Chaumière, both in Paris.Betty has exhibited in many cities nationally and around the world.
Her first exhibit was at the Gallerie Henri Tronche on Rue de La Boetie, Paris, and her poster hung in the café & restaurant Les Deux Magots. Albert Pierre Sarrault (French, 1872-1962), the former 109th & 116th President of the French Council of Ministers of France, bought two of her paintings. Betty's first museum exhibit was at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in 1961 and the late art critic Alfred Frankenstein of the San Francisco Chronicle called it, "The most delightful small show of the year." She also had a long time exhibit at the University at California, San Francisco (UCSF) Faculty/Alumni House, which ended in 2005, and once again showed here watercolors there from September-December, 2007.
Other exhibitions include; The Trojanowska Gallery, San Francisco, CA; the Yoseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; American Watercolor Society, NYC; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; American representative at the Bicentennial Exhibit, Amerika Hous, Vienna, Austria; Curacao Museum, Netherlands, Antilles; the American Embassy, Bonn, Germany (1988); The American Library, Bucharest, Romania (1989); and at Gump's, San Francisco, CA.
She was the company artist for the San Francisco Opera House for many years beginning in the early 1980's, doing the program covers and painting scenes from the company rehearsals. She has met some of her more famous clients via the Opera. At Gumps in San Francisco, CA, beginning in 1956, Betty had an exhibit and become the longest running artist who has featured and sold works through their retail location, before it moved to its Post Street, location.
She did commission paintings for the Port of San Francisco which were a series of watercolors of the Embarcadero among other San Francisco scenes. She painted the UCSF Founders Day invitations which featured a view of the Medical Center from the vantage point of Hugo Street in 1998. Betty loves to paint and has some favorite locations that she can paint again and again, and has stated, "If Monet can do his lilies paintings over and over, I can do Paris and Venice over and over."
