1950s Art of Renee Radell

Artist Bio highlights. 1950s art for Renee Kaupiz was a time of transition from watercolor painting to oil painting, even while attending Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts. Similarly, the 1950s was also a period of maturation from youth into womanhood through marriage to Lloyd Radell. The young couple moved from Detroit to Michigan suburbs where they took on the challenges of family building, eventually reaching five children.

With the richness of oil painting, Radell embraced figurative art. Her subject matter effortlessly moved from Americana and family life, to religion and a growing concern and passion for societal issues. Her rising star in the 1950s art environment caused Edgar P. Richardson, Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts and Director of the Archives of American Art, to comment in his catalog forward for Radell’s first one person oil painting exhibition in 1959:

“Her art today is not a charming and “artistic” one; it is one of passion and power, which one looks at carefully and with the most serious attention.”