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Rose Theodosia Sams Ransier Piper

Rose Theodosia Sams Ransier Piper (1917 - 2005) was active/lived in Rhode Island, New York.  Rose Piper is known for Textile print design, abstract expressionism, figure and portrait painting.

A textile designer and painter based in New York City, Rose Piper earned a B.A. degree from Hunter College in New York in 1940, and attended the Art Students League from 1943 to 1946. From 1947 to 1948, she was in Paris where she took classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

Early in her career, she did abstract expressionist painting, many of them inspired by 1920s work songs of African Americans. Needing to make a living, she gave up painting, but returned to it after 25 years with a much more controlled style influenced by her many years in fabric design.

She was the owner of Ransier Studio Cards in New York from 1949 to 1953 and after that had a career as a textile designer and colorist.  Her employers included Studio Fred Levi, Alamac Knitting Mills, Lebanon Knitting Mills and Jarmel Knitting Mills.

From the Rosenwald Foundation, she received a grant in 1946 and 1947.


Source:
St. James Guide to Black Artists[Displaying 1000 of 2561 characters.]  Artist bio

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Facts about Rose Theodosia Sams Ransier Piper

   Rose Theodosia Sams Ransier Piper  Born:  1917 - New York City
Died:   2005
Known for:  Textile print design, abstract expressionism, figure and portrait painting
Name variants:  Rose Ransier

Biography from the Archives of askART

A textile designer and painter based in New York City, Rose Piper earned a B.A. degree from Hunter College in New York in 1940, and attended the Art Students League from 1943 to 1946. From 1947 to 1948, she was in Paris where she took classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

Early in her career, she did abstract expressionist painting, many of them inspired by 1920s work songs of African Americans. Needing to make a living, she gave up painting, but returned to it after 25 years with a much more controlled style influenced by her many years in fabric design.

She was the owner of Ransier Studio Cards in New York from 1949 to 1953 and after that had a career as a textile designer and colorist.  Her employers included Studio Fred Levi, Alamac Knitting Mills, Lebanon Knitting Mills and Jarmel Knitting Mills.

From the Rosenwald Foundation, she received a grant in 1946 and 1947.


Source:
St. James Guide to Black Artists, pp. 423-426


Biography from Treadway

Rose Piper was born in New York in 1917, and spent nearly the entirety of her long and varied career there, beginning with her education at Hunter College. She was awarded a four-year scholarship at Pratt Institute, but her father believed Pratt was not really a college. She studied in New York and at the Art Student’s League, under Vaclav Vytacil and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.

Piper was the recipient of two prestigious Rosenwald Fellowships (1946 and 1948), which allowed her to travel to Paris for further study, and the southern United States. Her first solo exhibition at the Roko Gallery (New York) featured the results of this travel, 14 paintings based on Negro folk songs and blues songs that she had researched. The success of this show led her to be included in the 7th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Negro Art sponsored by Atlantic University in 1948.

Her painting, Grievin’ Hearted took first place and a cash prize of $300. She also exhibited at the ACA Gallery, and ran in the circle of artists which included Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, and a young Jacob Lawrence.

Her later exhibitions include: New Images, Hudson Guild Art Gallery, 1988; Contemporary African-American Artists, National Arts Club, New York, 1994; and The Fine Art of Textile Design, Cinque Gallery, New York, 1995; Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, 1993,1995.

An example of her work from the 1980s, Go Down Death, Easy (1988), appears in St James Guide to Black Artists, Thomas Riggs, 1997; (p.424).


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