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Hartwick College
Brooklyn Memories: The Folk Paintings of Ivan Koota Koota's colorful and lively Brooklyn scenes are painted from memory with help from vintage and contemporary photographs. His work allows viewers to glimpse Brooklyn's history and how it has evolved through the years. Often in Koota's works, defunct or demolished structures are depicted as he remembers them, as a vibrant part of the community. Koota completed his first painting at the age of 52, shortly before his retirement in 1994 as a pediatrician. Koota's paintings have been exhibited at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, the ERPF Cultural Institute in Arkville, and the Brooklyn Public Library-Grand Army Plaza. The Yager Museum is open noon-4:30 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday (or by appointment). Admission to the Museum is free. For more information, call 607-431-4480 or visit The Yager Museum
Article– Oneonta Star Re: Hartwick College Show
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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.
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