February 2025 – Robert Kurtz

Folsom Arts Association Artist Demonstration

Thursday, February 13, 2025, at 6 p.m.

The Gallery at 48 Natoma in Folsom

Robert Kurtz
Using Ordinary House Paint to Create Large and Expressive Paintings

Join us on February 13, to see how artist Robert Kurtz creates large, expressive and impressive paintings, using large brushes, house paints, and other unusual supplies.

Folsom Arts Association February Artist Demo with Robert Kurtz
Folsom Arts Association February Artist Demo with Robert Kurtz

Robert had an interest in art at an early age and while in grade school was designated by his teacher to attend Saturday art classes at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio where he lived. He enjoyed exploring the many historical, archaeological, and art displays there, even more than the classes.

One of his paintings at age eleven was chosen as part of a cultural exchange with Toledo’s sister city in Japan. Doing artwork was a minor part of his life until his early forties when he noticed a sign on a fence for oil painting instruction in a man named Smitty’s garage.  Smitty had taught thousands of people in his specialty of quick three hour and done paintings. Shortly after this Robert saw a museum quality landscape over the mantle at some friends’ house. Upon inquiring where it came from, he was told it was painted by the woman’s former art teacher.

He set out to find out if this person was still teaching, and after some persuasion he was allowed to attend evening classes taught by renowned Landscape and Wildlife Artist, Stefan Baumann. This was an advancement from the casual three hour, small canvass process he had started with.

Eventually work and other priorities got in the way of evening art classes and he went into “painter’s recession.” Upon moving from San Jose to El Dorado Hills in 2014 he looked for local instructors and found Kirk Miller and enjoyed weekly classes there, learning new things. He has also benefited from a brief time of instruction with Joyce Martin, Beverly Fields, and various one-day and weekend workshops with watercolor and oil painters.

Robert does not have any preferred medium since all of them have their unique properties and suit themselves to certain subjects or applications. Although he has had works in various galleries and has sold watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings, his greatest satisfaction has come from donating dozens of art pieces to various humanitarian non-profit fundraisers and seeing people purchase these for the benefit of others.

Please contact Lori Anderson, President, Folsom Arts Association, for questions about our monthly artist demonstrations.