Renowned N.O. Artist Ida Kohlmeyer Dies
Submitted By N.O.V.A.
Times Picayune 	01- 25-1997


*************************************************
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************  


Ida Rittenberg Kohlmeyer, a painter and sculptor who acquired a national
reputation for work that includes some of the most prominent public monuments in
New Orleans, died early Friday of a heart attack at Touro Infirmary. She was 84.

Mrs. Kohlmeyer's most visible works in New Orleans include stylized renderings of
sealife atop a colonnade outside the Aquarium of the Americas and "Krewe of
Poydras," a group of monumental staffs topped with bright abstract forms in front
of 1515 Poydras St., across from the Superdome.

Her work appeared in more than 200 group and solo exhibitions since 1957 and was
collected by nearly 40 museums, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the High
Museum in Atlanta and the Smithsonian Institution.

Mrs. Kohlmeyer, a native of New Orleans, filled her work with hot, discordant
colors like those found on Carnival floats and shotgun houses in some of the
city's neighborhoods.

She deployed those colors in shimmering fields, rows of emblems and scribbled
marks that resemble a private alphabet, a painterly language designed to
communicate emotions directly. Her approach was akin to that of the Abstract
Expressionist artists who came to prominence in the 1950s, but her signature was
distinct.

Beginning in the 1980s, she brought her jazzy, improvisational style to monumental
sculpture. Works such as "Krewe of Poydras" emphasize the totemic power that lurks
in gestures that seem casual at first glance.

Mrs. Kohlmeyer worked until her death, creating pieces for several exhibitions
scheduled for 1997. Solo shows are planned for Mary Ryan Gallery in New York and
New Orleans venues such as Longue Vue House and Gardens and Arthur Roger Gallery.

"The last few years were hard on my mother," said Mrs. Kohlmeyer's daughter, Jane
Lowentritt, who acted as the sculptor's studio manager. "She lost her husband of
61 years and suffered a major injury to one eye, but she showed more stamina and
bravery than anyone I know. She worked to the end and continued to grow as an
artist."

Mrs. Kohlmeyer waited until midlife to commit herself to an artistic career. She
began studying art at Newcomb College in the 1950s when she was 37 and had two
small children with businessman Hugh Kohlmeyer.

Reflecting on that time in a 1995 interview, she said, "I suppose I looked like a
perfect dilettante . . . Still, I think it's hideous to see people give up living
the life they want, to blame middle age or children and settle for much less than
they are capable of."

In the 1950s, Mrs. Kohlmeyer studied with major Abstract Expressionist artists
such as Hans Hoffman and Mark Rothko, but she soon found her own style, said
curator Jane Kessler, who organized a retrospective of Mrs. Kohlmeyer's work that
traveled to seven museums in the mid-1980s.

"To study a long career like hers reminds one that it takes perseverance and
struggle to give depth to an artist's work. You don't get that without spending
the time and having the discipline of a life commitment," Kessler said in 1995.

Mrs. Kohlmeyer's discipline also had an effect on the New Orleans art community,
sculptor Lyn Emery said. The two artists met about 1960, when Mrs. Kohlmeyer
joined the Orleans Gallery, a cooperative exhibit space founded by local modernist
artists.

"Ida energized the whole gallery. She pushed us into being more professional,
always saying that art is something to sell. She insisted on making the gallery
pay," Emery said.

Mrs. Kohlmeyer also was a role model and teacher for many young artists. She
taught at Newcomb from 1956 to 1965 and at the University of New Orleans from 1973
to 1975.

"Ida made a big difference for artists such as Lynda Benglis who have gone on to
major international careers," Emery said. "But her passion and skill affected
everyone around her, whether you knew her as a gifted collector of African art, a
committed rose gardener or an artist. She was even quite a golfer in the years
before she began to paint."

Besides Lowentritt, survivors include another daughter, JoEllen K. Bezou, and two
grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Forgotston Chapel at Touro
Synagogue, 4238 St. Charles Ave. Visitation will begin at 12:30 p.m. Burial will
be in Hebrew Rest Cemetery No. 3. Tharp-Sontheimer-Tharp Funeral Home is in charge
of arrangements.