Elizabeth Perkins is a descendant from a long line of artists on her mother's side of the family. Her mother's Norwegian lineage consists of four hundred years of documented artists who were fine art painters as well as sculptors commissioned by the aristocracy of Norway. Elizabeth's grandfather was the first to break the tradition and became a lawyer. Although he practiced law in Norway, he was unable to part entirely with painting and pursued portrait painting relentlessly as a hobby.

Elizabeth grew up in Marin County, California and attended college on the East Coast. After studying art history at Sarah Lawrence College and receiving a Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts, Elizabeth began her journey as a painter at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco in 1996.

Elizabeth has drawn inspiration over the years from the early California Impressionists who captured the beauty and intense colors of the State so well. She was particularly drawn to Seldon Gile, Maurice Braun, Franz Bischoff, Joseph Kleitsch, and Edgar Payne, as well as many of the French Impressionists, Post Impressionists and Fauves who used color for expression. She hopes that some of the joy that she feels painting gets translated into her work and that her paintings are a celebration of the joys of sight. She particularly enjoys painting with thick luscious paint in the “a la prima style.”

Elizabeth has learned quite a bit about painting through perseverance, trial and error and has taken workshops with talented artists and teachers over the years such as Daniel Gerhartz, Ken Auster, Dan Goozee, and Ralph Oberg, to name just a few who have helped her enormously. Early on in her artistic career, Elizabeth received encouragement from her teachers to pursue portraiture and currently does portrait commissions as well as plein air landscapes.

Telephone:
415.647.9755