Best known as a contemporary social commentary painter, Renée Radell (1929-2023) was a consummate colorist whose career spanned more than 70 years. Acclaimed at an early age for her dry-brush watercolors, Radell went on to receive wide recognition for her Figurative Expressionistic oil paintings, which captured the incongruities of America’s rise to superpower status after World War II.

Sometimes satirical, sometimes humorous, often tragic, Radell’s signature oil paintings convey her observational acuity and social consciousness by incorporating images of hope and hopelessness, conflict and reconciliation, regret and regeneration. Her deep spirituality and concern for the plight of humanity permeate all these works, making them increasingly germane to today’s fractured society.

An ”artist’s artist” committed to the visual integrity of her craft, Radell used her prodigious talent to fearlessly explore and master a wide range of media and genres. Her two-dimensional works include portraits, landscapes, still lifes, genre scenes, and abstracts in oil, acrylic, watercolor, and multi-media. She also created sculptures and reliefs in terra cotta, bronze, cast stone, and papier-mâché.