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Obituary
Page 13
"The tension between the reasoned coolness of Classicism
and the creative energy of expressionism is the dynamic of
Cobitz's work."
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
Joan Cobitz (1933-2005), painter, printmaker, teacher, was
an artist from a family of artists. Her mother was a dancer,
born in Chicago, whose family emigrated from the Pale near
Kiev, the Ukraine. Her father was a graphic designer, born
near Odessa on the Black Sea. Joan was raised on art, taking
lessons as a child at the Art Institute of Chicago and the
Maholy Nagy Chicago Bauhaus School. One of the first
generation of women formally trained in art at universities,
Joan received both her BFA and MFA from the University
of Iowa. She studied printmaking with Mauricio Lazansky,
well known for "The Nazi Drawings", a series of powerful
drawings about the brutality of Nazi Germany.
She also was an respected artist among a small community
of artists in Savannah, Georgia, where she lived for more
than twenty years. She taught printmaking, painting, and
book illustration at the young Savannah College of Art and
Design (1979-1982), when they were housed in their first
building on Charlton Street. She taught ceramics and art
appreciation at Armstrong University in the mid–eighties
and worked with kindergarten children at the JEA. Always a
mentor and friend to young artists, she held printmaking
workshops in her colorful and art filled house on Gwinnett
Street. Her life's work includes self portraits at every stage of
life and artistic development, insightful portraits of friends,
witty mythological tableau paintings, literary still lifes which
reflect her great interest in food and literature, technically
and emotionally explorative etchings, and drawings that
celebrate the biology of life.