About The Artist
Growing up in New York City, Dorothy Rice’s childhood was continually enlivened by the procession of illustrators and photographers who worked for her father’s commercial art studio. Her own art training began with night classes at the Art Student’s League in Manhattan while attending High School.
John Rawlings, the world renowned fashion photographer for Vogue, “discovered” her at age 14, and Vogue selected her to travel to Paris where she became the top photographic model for such legendary couturiers as Dior and Balenciaga. The resulting international acclaim led her to a career as an actress, performing frequently on Broadway, off-Broadway and on television.
She moved from New York to Beverly Hills to continue her successful acting career in Hollywood. Inspired by her new surroundings, she was ultimately drawn back to her first love: painting. She could frequently be seen setting up an easel on sidewalks, streets and other byways to create on-the-spot watercolors – images that were subsequently published in her first book of paintings, Los Angeles With Love, an artist’s-eye-view of the City of Angels.
Dorothy Rice studied at the Otis/Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and Santa Monica College, as well as at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. She adroitly works in a variety of media–oil, palette knife, watercolor and pastel–and is one of the few American artists ever to be honored with an invitation to paint a mural in Mexico, a country known for its tradition of spectacular muralists.
Her successful one-woman show of the lush oils of Mexico, Serenata Mexicana, at the prestigious Southwest Museum in Los Angeles was so popular it was extended for three months. Private collectors and corporations are among those who have purchased her paintings, and her work has been exhibited in the Palm Springs Museum, the National Arts Club in New York City, Madison Avenue galleries and in other venues across the United States and abroad.
Each of her books has been met with critical praise and public acclaim. Israel With Love depicts her sojourn through that country, a project so well-received the Israeli Ambassador in Washington, D.C., honored her with a gala reception at Israel’s embassy. Artwork from Israel With Love has since been on a three-year sponsored tour of the United States. In her third book, Manhattan With Love, she embarked on a journey of the heart back to the city of her youth, creating an exceptional tribute to an unparalleled city. Paintings from the Manhattan book have served as the permanent background set of ABC’s daily television series “The View”, formerly hosted by Barbara Walters and paintings from BeverlyHills With Love were showcased in every window of Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.
Many publications and critics have spotlighted Dorothy Rice and her signature style, including Architectural Digest which devoted a major article to her work, illustrating it with many of her paintings.
