Remembering Maxine and Natalie
We lost two matriarchs of Boston painting in November. Please share your memories.
Natalie Alper died on Nov. 5. Then Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship died on Nov. 22. Back in the day, the two worked across from each other at Station Street Studios in Brookline.
Maxine, who was 95 when she passed, was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Painting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, back when it was the Bunting Institute.
Natalie, born in 1937, was the first female member of the painting faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and taught there for more than 20 years. She was awarded an NEA Grant and the MFA’s Maud Morgan Prize.
Readers, I want to write more about Maxine and Natalie – about their art, their teaching, and their place in the community. Please help me by sharing your memories. What were they like? What did their paintings mean to you? Were you friends with one or both of them? You can write in the comments here, or if you’re a subscriber, simply hit reply and your thoughts will arrive in my inbox, and I’ll write an appreciation of these two painters next week.
I am so saddened to hear of the loss of Natalie Alper. I was lucky to find my way into a course she team-taught with Sandi Slone, and then painted under Natalie for the rest of my time at Museum School. Natalie showed me that artwork is primarily a place where you act, think and then act. She taught me how to be, in and out of the studio, how to work in community with other artists. It was the first place where I was taken seriously, not subjected to misogyny at every turn. She had an energy that was infectious and I loved her.
This is so sad.