Over the years, Grace Cole’s art has engaged and inspired viewers, and this online portfolio continues to attract attention from audiences around the world. It has also prompted new and returning visitors to ask about the origins of and reasons behind a particular work or series. At times an artist’s statement can fill in the gaps. At other times, these statements and the pieces themselves encourage more questions about the works’ creation within a particular context, against a particular backdrop.
For those interested in individual collections within Grace Cole’s portfolio, we invite you to consider the following publications:
Classical Forms
A Classical Realist artist trained in the Atelier Method, Grace Cole used her early works to learn, practice, and hone artistic techniques for accurately representing the world she saw. This series, her first of several, is a collection of still-life paintings, combining geometric shapes with natural forms. Offering what Cole describes as “an escape into pure creativity,” she invites the viewer to see the world and the artist in new ways.ISBN-13: 978-0998138732
ISBN-10: 0998138738
Classical Old Masters/New Visions
Since the beginning of her career, Grace Cole’s paintings and drawings have centered on the human figure. In studying how others represented the figure, Cole encountered artists who devoted much attention to presenting the dignity and nobility of humanity. Inspired by these artists’ subject matter, composition, techniques, and resulting creations, Cole began a series based on Old Master paintings and drawings. Reproducing elements of these works and altering the original’s size, media, and context, Cole created most of the pieces as carbon drawings with mixed-media collages, but later added recreations in pastel and charcoal. Collectively, the works became the “Old Masters/New Visions” series, encouraging new ways for viewers to see and connect with familiar masterpieces in art.ISBN-13: 978-0998138725
ISBN-10: 099813872X
Works 2000: Museum of…
A Classical Realist artist trained in the Atelier Method, Grace Cole focused on accurately representing the world she saw. In this series, conceived in the final years of the twentieth century, Cole uses commonplace objects to explore expectations, concerns, and speculations about the new Millennium that began to dominate public discourse.ISBN-13: 978-0998138749
ISBN-10: 0998138746
Face to Face: Chicagoans in the Arts
Since the beginning of her career, Grace Cole’s paintings and drawings have centered on the human figure in general and the face in particular. The series represented in this publication, Face to Face: Chicagoans in the Arts, portrays the faces of Chicagoans in the Arts.ISBN-13: 978-0998138718
ISBN-10: 0998138711
Assemblages, 1: Small Collections
Trained by the Atelier Method and considering herself a Classical Realist artist, Grace Cole focused on accurately representing the world she saw. Whereas portraiture taught Cole to depict the human form authentically and convincingly, her formal series helped her capture aspects of the environment with detail and accuracy. Behind the scenes were smaller creations. Offering purposeful distractions in and disruptions to the creative process, these works allowed Cole to return to her formal pieces with fresh insight.ISBN-13: 978-0998138756
ISBN-10: 0998138754
Additional books are in progress.