Lorna Ritz (B.1947)
Heavy Heart Sweet Blossoms
oil on canvas
38 x 48 in. (96.52 x 121.92 cm)
Executed in 2020.

NOTES::

Lorna Ritz’s work centers on gestural abstraction, using layered brushwork and soft tonal shifts to create atmospheric, emotionally driven compositions. Her paintings balance spontaneity with careful structure, favoring fluid edges and muted palettes that suggest space or mood rather than depict it literally. The result is a contemplative, introspective style that invites viewers into an open, meditative visual experience.

Lorna Ritz (B. 1947, Worcester, USA) is a painter based in Amherst, Massachusetts. Trained under Hofmann student James Gahagan, she carries forward a lineage of postwar abstraction rarely afforded to women of her generation. A MacDowell Fellow and dedicated educator, she has taught at RISD, Brown, Dartmouth, and the University of Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited at the Emily Dickinson Museum, Tampa Museum of Art, and the New Britain Museum of American Art, and is held in the collections of Cedars-Sinai, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Worcester Art Museum, and Provincetown Art Museum.