Nevada Artists Association President Debbie Foster holds a framed print of former watercolor impressionist Lady Jill Mueller’s “Hope Valley” painting, which will be raffled off this summer in a fundraiser for Carson High School’s art department. Provided
The Nevada Artists Association will raffle off a painting by former watercolor impressionist Lady Jill Mueller with funds to benefit Carson High School’s art department this summer.
Thanks to the painting donated by Mueller’s family, NAA President Debbie Foster and Joe Rousse, owner of FastFrame at 931 Jacks Valley Road E in Carson City, will present a framed print of Mueller’s painting “Hope Valley,” created in warm fall colors, in a fundraiser for school art supplies for the CHS department.
Vickie Kingman, a member of the NAA, said the association had spoken with several of the CHS teachers about holding the fundraiser for the school and it was decided to honor Mueller’s memory with her artwork.
Mueller, a professional artist and a resident of Reno well known for her landscapes representing the Carson Valley and the Mammoth Lakes areas, died July 4 last year after a battle with cancer.
She was born in 1944 in Hollywood, Calif., and received a scholarship at the Laguna Art School, formerly the Laguna Beach School of Art and Design, where she studied with other professional artists, including late impressionists David Millard and Ted Gorschner. However, she was influenced heavily by transparent watercolorists Rex Brandt, who co-founded a successful art school in Corona del Mar during the 1950s, and Milford Zornes, whose works became property of the U.S. Army and would belong to the Pentagon war art collection after he served in World War II.
In the 1980s, Mueller took up teaching in California, Nevada and Yosemite National Park. She led weeklong workshops in a castle in Scotland, and after coming to Nevada, she taught at Western Nevada College, Truckee Meadows Community College and more recently at the E. L. Cord Museum School of Art in Reno.
She lived at Washoe Lake and enjoyed capturing the Eastern Sierras in her work. She frequently took trips in her wooden camper, went on hikes with her Border collie Katie and stopped in spots that provided the wilderness images that wound up in museums, exhibitions or galleries and earned her accolades.
“Lady Jill captured the unique beauty of Nevada, and that includes our incredible clouds and skies,” Kingman said. “Her watercolors lifted our appreciation of the high desert."
Mueller’s watercolors are on display and can be seen at the NAA Gallery at 449 King St.
The NAA has 120 members and has been active 41 years.
