Frances Kornbluth

• Name — Frances Kornbluth • Born — 26 July 1920 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 26 May 2014 • Place of death — Dayville, CT • Field — Painter • Training — Reuben Tam William Kienbusch Robert Richenburg • Education — Brooklyn College Brooklyn Museum Art School Pratt Institute • Movement — Abstract Expressionism • Website — franceskornbluth.com

Frances Kornbluth was born in New York City on July 26, 1920. Originally intent on becoming a composer, Kornbluth graduated from Brooklyn College in 1940 with a degree in music; however, in the 1950s she focused her creative energies on painting. Kornbluth studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1955 to 1959, where she first met Reuben Tam, and went on to receive a master's degree from the Pratt Institute in 1962. It was Tam who first introduced Kornbluth to Monhegan Island and helped define her as an artist. Beginning in 1957, Kornbluth started spending her summers on Monhegan Island, where her friends and contemporaries included Lynne Mapp Drexler and Elena Jahn. Kornbluth died on May 26, 2014, at the age of 93. During her lifetime, she was a member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), a charter member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) and a founding member of Women Artists of Monhegan Island (WAMI).

The natural environment was the primary source of Kornbluth's inspiration, particularly that of Monhegan Island where she summered and painted from 1957 to 2013. Kornbluth painted at her studio in Lobster Cove on Monhegan and at her studio in Northeastern Connecticut. She worked in oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, ink and mixed media collage.

• "A Common Bond: Women Artists of Monhegan Island" at the Monhegan Museum of Art & History (2024) • "Maine Women Pioneers III" at the University of New England (2013) • "Collage: Piecing It Together" at the Portland Museum of Art (2010) • "On Island: Women Artists of Monhegan" at the University of New England (2007) • "Monhegan: The Abstracted Island" at the Bates College Museum of Art (2001) • "Overview: Four Decades" at the University of Connecticut (1996) • "Artists From Monhegan" at the Allentown Art Museum (1974)

• Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New York • Colby College, Waterville, Maine • Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia • Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York • Monhegan Museum of Art & History, Monhegan Island, Maine • Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine