Wendy Artin, Laura Upside Down Twice, 13” x 19 2/3”, watercolor, 2018
❋ ❋ ❋
From the Roman Studio
works-on-paper by Wendy Artin
November 2026, Gurari Collections, Boston
Link to Gurari Collections Website for artwork & catalogue
Gurari Collections is pleased to invite you to Wendy Artin’s new exhibition of works-on-paper, From the Roman Studio. The show accompanies Artin’s award-winning documentary short, Roman Studio, which will be previewed at the vernissage. From the Roman Studio features paintings from the film, a collection Artin has been building during the eight years of production.
The film foregrounds the models, for the first time seen and heard. The paintings are the moment of communication between artist and muse: her life models captured mid-dance, the statues which deify models who lived centuries ago, and the Roman artichokes that become the artist’s dinner when she finishes her nature-mortes.
Wendy Artin, BIG Campidoglio River God Tevere, 25” x 40”, watercolor, 2026
❋ ❋ ❋
Prominent in From the Roman Studio are Artin’s large watercolors and charcoal drawings of ancient river gods from the Campidoglio and Piazza Navona, statues which have brought up generations of models who fall naturally into their poses. Symbols of the Nile or Ganges suddenly become nearly nude, gigantic men, beefy guardians of the city.
Like the river gods that watch over her, Rome emerges in every element of From the Roman Studio, with Artin’s watercolors of the Ara Pacis, an altar to peace and fecundity from Augustus’ reign. The central figure has not been definitively identified, but hypotheses range from her representing Tellus, the goddess of Earth, Venus, Ceres, Pax, or the Lupa, the she-wolf who nursed Rome’s founders, Romulus and Remus, seen on the altar as the babies surrounding the central figure. On either side of the frieze is an aura, personified wind, identified by the billowing halo of fabric behind her. The goddesses, animals, and natural elements decorate the frieze and celebrate Rome at her most serene and prosperous.
Artin’s three-panel centerpiece brings these rigid stone figures to life in a dynamic bucolic scene where the swan threatens to fly away, grasses billow in the aurae’s winds, and the stoic bull stares ahead at onlookers.
Wendy Artin, BIG Ara Pacis Tryptich, 40” x 64”, watercolor, 2026
❋ ❋ ❋
Acting as a medium between antiquity and modernity, Artin’s colorful, lush, and ornate series of ranunculus paintings bears a striking resemblance to the acanthus scroll panels that adorn the lower level of the Ara Pacis—swirling tendrils, carefully placed stems, flowering buds, and, of course, the vivid masses of petals closing in on themselves. Roma antica and Roma moderna meet in From the Roman Studio, where the acanthus and ranunculus mirror each other, and the statues pose like models.
Wendy Artin, Pink Swirly Ranunculi, 7 4/5” x 15”, watercolor on paper, 2026
❋ ❋ ❋
About the Film
“The film ROMAN STUDIO features my models and me, in Rome, and answers questions like: “What is it like to be a life model?”
“My models are extraordinary people, expressive and courageous, ordinarily silent and still: I wanted to share what they are thinking, feeling, wondering as they pose. I wanted to show the exciting way watercolor marks can reveal in an instant figures, gestures, moods. The intertwining of artist and model in transforming reality into art, before it vanishes.”
Wendy Artin, ROMAN STUDIO, 2026
❋ ❋ ❋
Artist Acclaim and Awards
Wendy Artin was recently honored with the 2023 Arthur Ross Award for Excellence in the Classical Tradition by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA). She studied at the Museum School in Boston and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
The show of 50 watercolor paintings will be available at the Gurari Collections and online.
Exhibit: November 7th, 2025 to January 18th, 2026.
Gurari Collections, 460B Harrison Avenue, Boston MA 02118, +1 (617) 367-9800 gurari.com
Contact: Russ Gerard guraricollections@gmail.com
Wendy Artin, Watercolors From the Roman Studio, 2026