Suellen Rocca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Suellen Rocca | |
|---|---|
 Rocca in 1967 | |
| Born | Suellen Krupp October 2, 1943 |
| Died | March 26, 2020 (aged 76) Naperville, Illinois, U.S. |
| Alma mater | School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
| Spouse |
Dennis Rocca
(m. 1962; div. 1975) |
Suellen Rocca (née Krupp; October 2, 1943 – March 26, 2020) was an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art. She exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center from 1966 through 1969.[2] She was curator of the art collection and director of exhibitions at Elmhurst College.[3]
Suellen Krupp[4] was born in 1943 and grew up in a middle-class, Jewish family.[1] She began attending classes at the Art Institute of Chicago when she was in elementary school and knew she wanted to be an artist from the age of eight.[5] She married her husband, Dennis Rocca, in 1962. He brought home jewelry catalogues that informed Rocca's artistic style.
After her work with The Hairy Who starting in 1965,[6] Rocca had two children and continued her work as an artist. In 1970, she took a decade away from making art.[7] In 2015 she returned to the art world with her exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City.[7]
Rocco was a professor of painting, design, and drawing at Elmhurst College for 18 years.[8] She was the director of the Art Exhibition and Visiting Artist Program, and the curator and director of exhibitions.[9]
Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.[10]
Rocca died on March 26, 2020, from pancreatic cancer.[1][11]
Education
In 1960, at age 16, she began college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[7] There, she was heavily influenced by Whitney Halsted and Ray Yoshida.[12] In 1964, she received her BFA from SAIC with a major in painting and a minor in print-making.[13]
