About the Artist

 Living with her family in Princeton, New Jersey and anxious for a career in art, Elizabeth Torak moved to New York City on her own to complete high school at the Brearley School. The move allowed Elizabeth to take advantage of classes at the Art Students League while earning her high school diploma. She then completed a Bachelors degree in mathematics at the University of Chicago before returning to the Art Students League to continue her art studies. It was at the League that Elizabeth met her husband Thomas, also a painter. In 1994 the couple relocated from New York to their home and studio in Vermont.

The atmospheric quality in her work is achieved not only through her painting technique but also through the construction of the painting. Elizabeth prepares Belgian linen with rabbit-skin glue and white lead, and uses dry pigment mixed with cold pressed linseed oil for color. A difficult and time consuming task, long abandoned by most contemporary artists, she feels it is imperative to achieve the appearance she seeks in her paintings. Elizabeth paints a broad range of subject matter including still lifes, landscapes and figures.

Ms. Torak has had several solo and two-person shows and been included in numerous group exhibitions. She has shown her paintings at the Butler Institute of American Art, the San Diego Art Institute and the Arlington Museum of Art in Arlington, Texas. Her many awards include an Honorable Mention at the Butler Institute of American Art Midyear Exhibition, The John Spiegel Memorial Award from the American Artists Professional League, the Marguerite Sinaly Memorial Award from the Salmagundi Club, the Len G. Everett Memorial Award from Audubon Artists, and the Anna Hyatt Huntington Bronze Medal Award for Oil from Catherine Lorillard Wolfe. She is listed in Who’s Who in America 2004 and in the Biographical Encyclopedia of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers of the U.S.: Colonial to 2002

Ms. Torak was the subject of a feature article in American Artist Magazine in August 1994. Her work and techniques are profiled in the book “Creative Oil Painting, Techniques from 15 Master Painters” by M. Stephen Doherty. A finalist in the “Realism Today” competition sponsored by American Artist magazine, her entry “Nightclub Table” appeared in the October issue of American Artist and was included in the “Realism Today” exhibit at John Pence Gallery in San Francisco.

Ms. Torak also writes occasionally about the art of painting. Her most recent article “What Makes a Figure Painting Move?” appeared in the September 2004 issue of American Artist Magazine.

Ms. Torak’s work is included in a touring exhibit featuring selected members of Allied Artists of America. This two-year museum tour includes the Museum of Texas Tech University and the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama.