About Christina:

Christina Schlesinger born, 1946

lives, New York City

A black and white photograph shows me as a three year old sprawled on a stool, drawing, intently. Some people write things down to make them real. For me it has always been drawing. I suppose I became an artist as a way of taking in the world.

I grew up on the east coast in a family of artists and celebrated historians. I graduated from Harvard, moving to Los Angeles in the ‘70’s. There I painted murals and co-founded SPARC, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, with Judy Baca. Among many adventures was a magical meeting with Georgia O’Keeffe. I returned to the east coast and had my first solo show in New York City in ’87 and continued showing in the East Village and Soho. In the early ‘90’s I returned to public art, painting big mural commissions in Los Angeles, New Hampshire, Missouri and New York. I received my MFA from Rutgers, began teaching and later adopted my daughter, Chun, from China.

I paint in series, and shown here are five bodies of work: landscapes, birches, nudes and tomboys, encaustics and the Dorothy paintings.

The landscapes are painted outdoors, plein air, in New England and Long Island. The Birch Paintings focus on birches in the landscape. Tomboys and nudes take a look at tomboys and racy strong female nudes. The Dorothy paintings are large mixed media pieces which honor the Oz heroine. And the encaustics are dreamy, layered, imagined paintings in an ancient wax medium. All paintings are available and prices can be obtained on request.

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