Bottle and Bowl, Oil on Linun

Janet Niewald at David Crane's Studio

Janet Niewald attended Connecticut College, New London, (Biology/Art/Asian Studies) and the New York Studio School Program in Paris, before transferring to Kansas City Art Institute to earn her BFA in 1976 (Painting/Printmaking). In 1978, she received her MFA (Painting/Drawing) with honors from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Subsequently, Niewald received a year-long Ford Foundation Grant as artist-in-residence at the University of Georgia, Athens, where she was then asked to teach. Since 1980, when she moved to Blacksburg, she has taught in the Department of Art and Art History at Virginia Tech.

Niewald exhibits her oil paintings, watercolors and drawings nationally and regionally. She is represented by Munson Gallery in Santa Fe. Her work is representational, and usually done from observation. Currently, she is developing a series of still life diptychs and a group of polyptychal paintings of rocks and water. Niewald and her husband, potter David Crane, also collaborate on a body of ceramic work reflecting his interest in form with hers in drawing, and influenced by a shared interest in American Indian ceramics and textiles.