Marge Bennett (1929-2024) American, Large Original Abstract Signed Watercolor. From her "Cathedral Series." Incorporates numerous light tones of blue, red, and yellow to create a geometrically abstract landscape. Signed bottom right. Brief bio about the artist attached to the back of the frame. 

Condition: Great.  

Overall Size: 32 1/4 x 47 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 25 x 39 1/2 in. 

Marge Bennett was born Margaret Helen Collins in Cleveland, Ohio on February 11th, 1929. She was a child prodigy who grew up in severe poverty in nearby Parma during the Great Depression, and at 18 she entered the convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame, where she became Sister Phoebe. She taught chemistry and physics for their high school, and later at Notre Dame College. With other sisters, she created an inner-city homework club that served neighborhood children and parents. After being dispensed from her religious vows in the 1960s she joined nine other former sisters to form an experimental religious community in Pueblo, Colorado. Eager to continue learning and growing, she received her PhD in chemistry from the University of Denver and became a professor there. At a party with friends Marge met Fred Bennett, a former priest who she had met at the high school in Ohio, and they married in 1972. After they moved to Florida in the 1980s she worked as a chemist for the Florida Citrus Growers Association, and grew her own small grove of orange trees for research. Together she and her husband were both active in the arts and humanities and traveled widely, taking an 80 day trip around the world for their shared 80th birthdays. Marge had always been drawn to art but had never studied it until taking two courses on it at the Art Institute of South Florida, and dedicated herself completely to art from then on, creating watercolor and acrylic scenes, still lifes, and portraits. Despite her late start and being mostly self-taught, her work can now be found in collections throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, and in her final years she operated her own gallery in the Towles Court Art Center in Sarasota, Florida. She was an active member of the Florida Watercolor Society, Women Contemporary Artists, and the National League of American Pen Women, and acted with local theater troupes as well. She died on February 21st, 2024 at her home in Sarasota.

Great.