About the artist

Ivan Koota

 

   Artists statement and c.v

 

I am a self-taught painter and retired Pediatrician now living in Delhi, NY for the past 13 years.  I started to paint in 1991 shortly before I retired and from the onset the consistent focus of my work has been Brooklyn, my birthplace and home for the first 25 years of my life. My subjects include recalled places and experiences that occurred mostly during the time I lived there. I frequently refresh my memories with periodic photographic trips to Brooklyn as well as reviewing images found in books, postcards, etc. When I paint earlier 20th Century Brooklyn, the period before my time, I must rely on historic photographs.  

 

Most of my paintings focus on neighborhoods and the “simple” events of daily Brooklyn life like shopping, children at play, sports, family entertainment, etc.  Simple yes…but it’s the stuff that made special the vibrant and nurturing family neighborhoods of Brooklyn either before or during the 25 years I lived there and happily continue to the present.  My work also includes prominent Brooklyn sites like parks and important buildings.

 

In April, 1996, I had my first solo exhibit at the Frank Miele gallery in NYC. Since then I have been in several solo and group shows. In 1998 my painting of Ebbets Field titled “Before the Game” was exhibited at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY. In 1999, the painting “Grand Army Plaza” was selected to be part of an inclusive survey of New York State Folk Art, both past and present also held at the Fenimore Art Museum. In 2003, I was honored with a retrospective show at the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and the painting “Grand Army Plaza” is now on permanent exhibition at the library, In addition, my painting “Watchtower” is now part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Historical Society. My works are also included in several private collections. Over the past 17 years I have completed about 80 or so paintings ranging from my usual 24 x 30” size up to 44 x 62”. I also enjoy the process of reproduction by making my own prints.      

 

C.V.

 

Born- Brooklyn, NY 1939

Columbia College, NYC-- 1960 A.B.

SUNY-Downstate Medical School-- 1964 M.D.

Pediatric Practice in Long Island and Queens

 

SOLO ExHibitions

 

Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts Oneonta, NY---2008

 

Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY-- 2004-2005

 

Brooklyn Public Library Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY -   2003

 

Catskill ERPF Cultural center- Arkville, NY-   2001-  Curated by Inverna Lockpez

 

 “Brooklyn Memories”- Frank Miele Gallery, NYC – 1996

 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

Juried Show of New York Artists—-Cooperstown Art Association-  2008

 

Roberson Museum, Binghamton, NY---2007- Juried by Philip Pearlstein

 

National Juried Show- -- Cooperstown Art Association—2006

 

“The Many Faces of Folk Art”- Cooperstown Art Association, Cooperstown, NY- 5/5/06-6/2/06

 

Juried show --UCCCA (Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts), Oneonta, NY --2005

 

NY State Folk Art- Past and Present- Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY- 1999

 

“Folk Art Masterpieces”-- Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY - 1998

 

Winner-Art News Prize- National Juried Show--Cooperstown Art Association –1994

 

National Juried Show---Cooperstown Art Association----1993

 

 

              Also RepresenteD IN SEVERAL PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can be reached at:

 

brooklyn@brooklynplaces.com

 

Or by phone at:

 

607-746-8122

 

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Text Box: PAST IS PRESENT IN HIS ART A stroke of nostalgia for retired doc BY CLEM RICHARDSON NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, January 31th 2003, 8:04AM Ivan Koota credits his first career with much of the success he's enjoying in his second. "You don't work hard all your life and retire and do nothing," Koota said. "I got used to hard work and long hours while I was practicing medicine. Now I just put that energy into my painting." You can see the fruits of the retired pediatrician's efforts now through March 3 in the Grand Lobby of the Brooklyn Public Library's Central branch at Grand Army Plaza. "Brooklyn Primitive: The Art of Ivan Koota" features 32 paintings in which the self-taught artist re-creates the borough of the 1940s and 1950s, from Ebbetts Field to the Brooklyn Bridge, the Botanic Garden to the Coney Island Boardwalk's Parachute Jump amusement park ride. "I'm a Brooklyn boy," Koota said. "I still feel the pain of when the Dodgers left for Los Angeles." Koota's work on display is incredible for the detail - in "Right Field Wall," for instance, a rendering of Ebbets Field, the numbers on the player's backs are authentic. That's no accident. Koota said he researches each piece meticulously, checking old newspapers, books and Internet sites for pictures he can use as subjects. "I'll even drive around and take snapshots of places to use," Koota said. "But there are few places today that look like they did then. The truth is, I can't sketch for beans. If not for the camera and old photographs, I would be lost." Gowanus Canal's heyday Anyone looking to visit the Brooklyn of old would be right at home in a Koota painting. Here is the Gowanus Canal when it was still a heavily worked artery filled with barges and light boats. As you would expect, each piece oozes nostalgia - there are the dancing "Old Gold" cigarette girls as well as billboards for Gem razor blades, Schaefer Beer, the Piel Brothers and Horton's Ice Cream. Even the Daily News makes a few billboards, as does the defunct Dubrows Stores. "I tried to get things from that period," Koota said. "Those signs painted on the windows [in another piece] are the actual signs I took from a picture." Jay Kaplan, director of the library's Willendorf Division, which booked Koota, said the exhibition has proven very popular with the public. "People love this show," Kaplan said. "It's colorful and evocative of a Brooklyn of bygone years. People almost seem to remember these places in the same colors Koota uses." Koota's work is considered primitive because he is self-taught, having taken up the art on his wife Sharon's advice shortly before he retired his pediatric practice in 1994. "He doesn't use any of the glazing or elaborate techniques that artists trained in schools use," Kaplan said. Med degree at Downstate Born and raised in Midwood, Koota went to Midwood High School, Columbia University (he says that's when he discovered Manhattan) and SUNY Downstate, where he earned his medical degree. He worked in Pittsburgh before returning to Bellevue Hospital as a pediatric physician. He later opened a private practice in Queens and in Great Neck, L.I. Koota and his wife, who makes woven art, share a studio in their home in Delhi, in Delaware County. "It's a small town, perfect for an artist," Koota said.