Ora A. Huth (nee Gipe) (1922-2022) American, Watercolor. Signed along with insignia lower right. Inscribed below: "Ora Gipe, Art 199 - sec III. Mr. Obata." Depicts young woman with blue hat, possible self-portrait.

Depth: 1 in.

Overall size: 17 X 21 in.

Sight size: 10 1/4 X 14 1/4 in.

#1588 .

Ora Alice Gipe, was born in Fort Collins, Colorado in February 1922. Her parents moved the family to Sacramento where she first became interested in art. She received her Bachelors from the University of California, Berkeley in 1942 and received her MFA from UCLA in 1947. During World War II, she served in the U.S. Marine Corps at Arlington, Virginia. From 1947-1956, she taught art in the Vallejo Unified School District, encouraging students to focus on abstract expressionism. Ora married Kurt Huth in 1956, and they raised two daughters, Marlene and Carol, in Berkeley. She served as chair of the City of Berkeley Waterfront Commission, president of the Bay Area League of Women Voters, and research associate and author of texts on governance and California history for the University of California's Institute of Government Studies and its Regional Oral History Office. Her personal abstract style fused fauvist color and expressionist energy to give movement and drama to her fluid biomorphic shapes. She died in Woodland Hills, California, in June 2022, four months after celebrating her 100th birthday. This particular piece indicates it was executed for Art Class 199, Section III in the late 1940s for Professor Chiura Obata at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, possibly gifted to him upon completion.

Location Box 4