Bea Kreloff (1925-2016)
She was a painter, teacher, activist, radical lesbian feminist, and co-founder and Director Emeritus of Art Workshop International. Born in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, she showed an interest in art and political activism from an early age. She attended Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, then studied at and worked for The Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1950 to 1958 where she took classes with the painters Max Beckmann and Rubin Tam. In the 1960s she painted and taught privately, and from 1973 to 1985 was Art Department Chair at Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Riverdale, N.Y. She taught painting workshops, seminars, and lectured on art at Cooper Union, Marymount Manhattan College, Women's Caucus for Art, The New School University and The College Art Association, among other institutions. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., as well as in a number of private collections. She was an avid feminist, actively involved with the anti-war movement, gay liberation, and women’s issues. Over the course of 35 years, she held painting and drawing classes at Art Workshop International, Assisi, Italy. She was an original tenant of Westbeth Artist Housing in Greenwich Village, where she resided with her partner Edith Isaac Rose.
