Jeanne Rosier Smith grew up painting and discovered pastels at a young age. In 2005, she left her career as a college English professor and switched to professional art full time. Smith is best known for her seascapes and offers a video instruction program of seascape and other painting subjects through Epiphany Fine Art. Jeanne is a Master Pastelist with the Copley Society, and in 2022, Jeanne attained the title of Eminent Pastelist with the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS). Jeanne served as the landscape judge for the 2023 Pastel Journal Top 100, a competition which she twice won first  place, in 2017 and 2019. She has been the subject of feature articles in Plein Air magazine (June 2022), Pastel Journal (2018 and 2012), Pratique des Arts (2017, 2018), International Artist Magazine (2017). She has also published educational articles for the Pastel Journal and The Artist's Magazine. She served as education consultant to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for their popular 19th Century French Pastels exhibit, where she also presented gallery talks and painting demonstrations. Her work toured with the 18th National Exhibition of the American Society of Marine Artists, showing in six museums through February of 2022. She is the 2019 recipient of the Cape Ann Museum Residency Fellowship, and spent a month painting on Cape Ann. She has also shown her work at the National Arts Club and museums around the country. Jeanne has won numerous top awards, including the 2021 Art Spirit Foundation Gold Medal for Pastel in the Salmagundi Club’s Member Show. Her wave painting “Sunday Best” took third place in Landscape, from over 2,000 entries, and was published in the April 2021 issue of The Pastel Journal, as a winner in their annual Top 100 competition. 

I’ve been visiting the seaside since I was small, and from my very first wave paintings, I realized that painting the ocean gave me a way to transport myself there with each painting. Capturing the ocean allows me to live at the beach and refresh my spirit year round, as I meditate and live in the scene on my easel whenever I’m working. Working from memory, on-site studies and thousands of photos, I paint mostly in my studio, zooming in and cropping reference photos and adding layers, first wet and then dry in soft pastel on sanded paper. The dry medium of soft pastel with its reflective, vibrant crystals of pigment allows for vibrant and luminous visual color mixing on the painting’s surface. I find it’s perfect for conveying the light passing through a cresting wave- and just about any other effects. Pastel is my chosen medium: since I discovered pastel over twenty years ago, I have not painted with anything else.

I start with tiny thumbnail sketches on toned paper, and each painting germinates not just from an image but from an idea and a feeling that I want to convey. I usually jot down a word or two next to the sketch to ground and direct my thoughts during the painting process. This keeps me from getting distracted by little details which can distract and detract from a simple and powerful statement. My training as a writer helps here. Ruthless editing is a good thing.

My new work explores the abstract underlying designs beneath the realistic images I paint, and seeing just how far I need to go in order to maintain realism while still leaving something to the imagination. I love pastel because the rich, pure pigments allow vibrations of color and visual mixing impossible to capture in any other medium. Pastel fits my personality. It’s a vibrant and flexible medium, allowing both a simple, direct approach and the buildup of complex, rich layers and textures. While I appreciate a good plan, I love that with pastel there’s always room for a change in direction.

Jeanne is also celebrated for her New England landscapes painted in all seasons. It is the light—falling on snow, filtering through trees, or lighting up that crest of a wave that creates the magic in her pastel paintings. She had a solo exhibit of 37 pastel paintings representing all the seasons at the St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA in 2022.

Smith is a Master Artist with the Copley Society, a signature member of the Pastel Society of America and the American Society of Marine Artists, an International Association of Pastel Societies Masters Circle member, a member of the Connecticut Pastel Society, the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod, the Salmagundi Club, and Academic Artists of America. Her work has appeared in many magazines and she is a regular contributor to the Pastel Journal and The Artist’s Magazine. Her paintings are in collections on six continents.

Selected Awards

Gold Medal, International Association of Pastel Societies International Exhibition 2021

Art Spirit Foundation Gold Medal for Pastel, Salmagundi Club Member Show, for Sleeping Giant 2021

First Place, Copley Society Fall Member Show, 2021

Salmagundi Club Award, Pastel Society of America National Show 2020

Dakota Arts Summer Pastel Competition, 3rd Prize Established Artist 2020

Pastel Painters of Cape Cod Award, CMPS National Show 2020

Honorable Mention, Copley Society Summer Show 2020

Bold Brush Outstanding Pastel, February 2020

Sylvia Maria Glesmann Award for Seascape, Salmagundi Club 2020

First Place, Pastel Journal Magazine Top 100 Landscape (with seascape paintings), 2017 and 2019

Salmagundi Club Purchase Award, Thumbbox Show 2018

Top 100 Pastel Journal Magazine Honorable Mention, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018

Bold Brush Finalist July 2018

Bold Brush Fav 15% Nov, Dec 2016, Feb, March, Apr, May, June, Sept, Oct, Nov 2017, Jan, Mar, May, June, August, Sept, Nov, Dec 2018

PPSCC Award, Renaissance in Pastel 2018

Membership Award, Purely Pastel Show, Connecticut Pastel Society 2017

Airfloat Award, For Pastels Only, Cape Cod Nat. Show 2018

Connecticut Pastel Society Award, For Pastels Only, Cape Cod Nat. Show 2017

Award of Excellence, IAPS Web Show 2016

First Place, Copley Society Winter Show, 2016

Jerry’s Artarama Award, Connecticut Pastel Society Renaissance in Pastel National Show 2016

Wholesale Framers Award, Connecticut Pastel Society Renaissance in Pastel National Show 2015

Artists’ Magazine Finalist, Landscape, 2014, 2015, 2017

Art Renewal Center Competition Finalist, Landscape, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Best in Show, Signature Show at Cape Cod Museum of Art 2014

New Hampshire Pastel Society Award, Painting New England in Pastel 2013

Salmagundi Club Award of Merit, 2013, 2016

Best in Show Prix de Pastel, IAPS Gallery Show, Brea CA, 2012        

Grand Prize, International Artist Magazine, Seascapes 2012

Gold Medal, Art Spirit Foundation, American Artists Prof League, NYC 2011

CPS Members' Award, Renaissance in Pastel National Exhibit, 2012

Judges' Choice Award, Copley Society 2012

Award of Excellence, For Pastels Only, 2010 Cape Cod Nat. Show    

Award of Excellence, Roddy Open, Concord Art Assn, 2008 and 2010

Selected Recent Exhibitions

American Impressionist Society 21st National, 2020

American Society of Marine Artists, Principle Gallery Charleston, 2018

Master Circle Exhibition, IAPS 2017, 2019

Butler Institute of American Art “Enduring Brilliance” PSA Select Show 2017

Pastel Society of America “Enduring Brilliance” National Show, 2005, 2013-2020

American Society of Marine Art Six-Museum Tour, 2016-2018, 2019-2021

Guild of Boston Artists Regional Competition, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020

For Pastels Only Cape Cod Nat'l Show, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019

International Assoc. of Pastel Societies Web Show, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Renaissance in Pastel, CPS, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018

America's Parks National Museum Exhibition Tour 2013 & 2016

Academic Artists Association, Springfield, MA 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015

Two-Person Show, Powers Gallery, March 2014

Boston Symphony Hall, with Copley Society “Pictures at an Exhibition,” 2013

Laumeister Competition, Bennington Museum, Bennington VT, 2012, 2013

International Association of Pastel Societies Gallery Show, Brea CA, 2012

Pastels By Invitation, Chatham MA 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

American Artists Professional League, NYC, 2011, 2012, 2014

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Juried Show, NYC 2005, 2010, 2012, 2014

Professional Honors

Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Consultant to Pastel Exhibition & Gallery Presentation, Spring & Summer 2018

Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Pastel Demonstration October 2018, November 2016

Copley Society/Cape Ann Museum Resident, 2019

Designated Copley Master, Copley Society of Art, 2018

Designated American Society of Marine Artists Signature Status 2017

Designated International Association of Pastel Societies Master Circle 2014

Designated Pastel Society of American Signature Status, 2012

Salmagundi Club private collection purchase, 2018

Developed Signature Set of 30 Seascape Terry Ludwig Soft Pastels

Developed Signature Set of 80 Land & Sea Richeson Soft Pastels

Color Consultant, Portrait 60 collection, Terry Ludwig Pastels

Publications

Artists Magazine 5 page article October 2020

Pastel Journal 10-page feature article, June 2018

Pratique des Arts Cover artist and feature article, French art magazine, Oct 2018.

Judge, three national pastel society shows 2017-2018

International Artist Magazine, December 2017 Seascape Demonstration feature article

Pratique des Arts, August 2017 feature article/interview

International Artist Magazine, Grand prize winner, Oct/Nov 2012

Pastel Journal Feature article, August 2012 

American Art Collector Feature article, August 2012 and August 2017

Judge, International Association of Pastel Societies Web Show 2012

Memberships:  IAPS Master Circle, Signature Member of Pastel Society of America, American Society of Marine Artists, Connecticut and Cape Cod Pastel Societies; Copley Master, Salmagundi Club Artist Member

Teaching Experience

Self-published 3-DVD instructional video series on seascapes, picked up for electronic distribution by F+W Media/Artists Network TV.

National and International teaching workshops

2007-2017: Owner/operator Jeanne Rosier Smith Pastel Studio, Taught ongoing weekly classes to up to 36 students in three classes for over ten years in my home studio.

Education

duCret School of Art, and New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ, 2003-2005

Workshop Study: Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Richard McKinley, Claudia Seymour, Kim Lordier, Susan Ogilvie

B.A. in English, Georgetown Univ. 1988, Ph.D. in English, Tufts Univ, 1994