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"I love New York and its street scenes," Ms. Newquist said from her Newtown home and studio. "New York street scenes possess an extraordinary allure; its streets are teeming with energy and inspiration."
Ms. Newquist doesn't concentrate on New York's best-known landmarks, however. Rather, it is the ordinary bustle of the city and its residents that fascinates the painter.
"Painting has been a life-long journey for me. I paint what I know well and what I love," she said. "In my urban landscapes, it is the energy of the city that motivates me. The rich color, the unique activities, the people in action are the elements I strive to bring together. I see a joy in the city and I try to use this in my paintings."
She is sharing that joy and movement with viewers this September in "Urban Energy," a solo exhibition of her cityscape watercolors at the Gunn Memorial Library in Washington that opened last weekend and is on display through Oct. 17.
Ms. Newquist took the first steps on her artistic "lifelong journey" as a young girl. Initially inspired by New England landscapes, she eventually found her muse in New York City and its energy-particularly in New York's SoHo district. The eclectic lower Manhattan neighborhood was, at first, a commercial district, giving birth to firms such as Lord & Taylor and Tiffany's. The area changed when the fashionable businesses moved uptown and, in the 1950s and '60s, artists were drawn to the area, moving into the abandoned warehouses that now served as "lofty" spaces in which they expressed their creativity. By the 1970s, SoHo became New York City's artistic haven.
The city came calling for the young artist after she earned a bachelor's degree in fine art at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ranulph Bye, Reginald Marsh and Frank Reilly. It was during her studies at the Art Students League in New York that she first fell in love with the city that never sleeps.
"I lived on 89th Street back then. Then I met my husband, [Larry], and we moved to Tuckahoe, N.Y., and later to New Jersey before settling in Connecticut [in 1967]," Ms. Newquist recalled. "I worked in the city for years, in the textiles industry and later as a commercial artist. I did a lot of freelance then for design studios and for the American Automobile Association. I hated working a 9-to-5 job; I hated being cooped up in the studio. Freelance gave me more freedom and allowed me to focus on my own fine art."
Ms. Newquist said her husband, an oil painter, worked for the Famous Artists School in Westport, which brought the couple to Connecticut, where they both established studios in which to work. Ms. Newquist taught art-drawing, painting, clay and plaster-for 22 years at New Fairfield High School, which allowed her to continue her freelance work, as well as her fine art.
"At first, New England was my passion, until 10 or 12 years ago," she said. "My daughter, who is also an artist, had taken some pictures while she was in New York that inspired me. I started going into New York and taking my own pictures, capturing street scenes that I would then paint. I loved capturing people in the moment, using New York's skyline as the backdrop. They became snapshots in time."
Now known for her New York SoHo cityscapes and urban landscapes, Ms. Newquist said she is never at a loss for inspiration.
"The overall color of each painting is important to me. Sunshine and warm colors dominate my paintings to give the city a lighthearted look. I use color, especially warm colors, to achieve a heightened mood," she said.
"I visit the city on sunny days and take lots of pictures. Since I'm a frequent visitor to the city, I have a clear feeling of what I want to capture," she continued. "It gives me a joyous feeling to enter a city that stands for so many things-education, culture and history, living today.
"I first look for buildings rich in character to set the stage-buildings with strong color, exciting imagery and dark, shadowy accents for punctuation. I look for figures in action because they seem to be more involved in the scene. They become part of a moment in time in the life of the city. It is the people, sometimes dressed in outrageous outfits, that give the city its energy," she said.
While a narrative quality was not an original goal, she said, "A story-telling quality to the scene is always a plus. But I am careful not to let the figures take over. I try to create a balance between the people and the environment-integrating the figures into the composition. This, to me, is a good marriage of everything that I am trying to say. This becomes 'urban energy.'"
Over the years, Ms. Newquist has become a signature artist member of the National Watercolor Society, the Salmagundi Club in New York City, and of the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club and Allied Artists of America in New York City. She is also a member of the North Shore Art Association in Gloucester, Mass., and the Connecticut Watercolor Society.
Her work was featured on the "Watercolor Pages" in American Artist Magazine in 1999, and was represented in "Best of Watercolor III," a hard cover book published by Rockport Publishers in 1999, and "Splash 9," a hard cover book published by North Light Books in 2006.
Both her oil and watercolor paintings have been exhibited throughout New England, Pennsylvania, New York and the West Coast. Awards include the top watercolor award in the 2001 Salmagundi Club Annual Members Exhibition and the Thomas C. Picard Award for an oil painting in the 2002 Salmagundi Club Annual Members Exhibition. Her work has been exhibited locally at the Kent Art Association, as well in shows presented by the Society of Creative Artists of Newtown, a non-profit art association of Western Connecticut area artists with a membership of 300. Its goal for more than 30 years is to support artists and promote the visual arts.
For the time being, Ms. Newquist is planning a trip to New York before the waning days of summer shift to the crisp days of fall. Summer, after all, is her favorite time to visit the city.
"I love New York City [in the summer]," Ms. Newquist said with a smile. "I love wandering through SoHo or down West Broadway, where the city is teeming with inspiration-the sun coming up over the city causing a struggle between dark and light, silhouettes of people and a taxi off in the distance, all captured in a moment in time ... that's the stuff I love to capture. I love those moments of urban energy."
"Urban Energy" continues through Oct. 17 in the Stairwell Gallery at the Gunn Memorial Library, located at 5 Wykeham Road in Washington. The library is open Monday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. It can be reached by calling 860-868-7586, or by visiting www.gunnlibrary.org.
