Liana Moonie

Legacy Award Recipient

Liana Moonie was raised in Italy in a creative family. Her father introduced her to watercolor painting, a favorite hobby of his. She earned a teaching degree, and after the Second World War moved to the United States and became a U.S citizen. She has traveled extensively in the U.S., Europe and South America. She studied art with Robert Brackman, Edgar Whitney, William Maxwell and other prominent artists.
 
Originally a representational artist, for many years she has favored semi-abstract and abstract painting, and has developed a unique style in various media, including watercolor, oil, pastel, collage, encaustic, woodcut, etching, monoprint and monotype.

Liana’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Coral Springs Art Museum in Florida, the Director's Choice show at the Silvermine Art Galleries in New Canaan, the Treasure Room Gallery of the Interchurch Center in New York City, the Watermark Gallery in Bridgeport, the UMA Gallery in New York City, the Art/Place Gallery in Fairfield, and the President's Choice Show at the Greenwich Art Society.

She has exhibited in many juried and invitational shows throughout the Northeast, and has participated in several traveling shows in the U.S. and abroad.  Her paintings appear in several public and private collections.  A new solo show is scheduled to open August 25, 2016 at the H. Pelham Curtis Gallery at the New Canaan Library.
 
Liana has received many awards and prizes for her paintings, as well as number of special recognition awards. These include the N.A.W.A. Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2012, the N.A.W.A. Medal for Outstanding Service to the Arts in 2007, the N.A.W.A. Citation for Inspired Leadership in 1989, and the prestigious Owl Award of the National League of American Pen Women-Greenwich Branch in 1997.
 
Liana has dedicated herself to several art organizations, especially the National Association of Women Artists (N.A.W.A.) where she established the permanent collection of the organization, housed at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. She is a lifetime member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists where she and her late husband Clyde were the founding donors to the Silvermine Art Center’s Endowment.  Other memberships include the Greenwich Art Society, the Stamford Art Association and the Greenwich Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. She is a former Director and President of the Mamaroneck Artists Guild and served twice as co-president of the Greenwich Art Society.  She is also a former Director of the Scarsdale Art Society. Liana is represented in the Library of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

“My paintings spring from a love and appreciation of Nature, filtered through a meld of ever-changing life experiences. The art reflects what I see now and what I have experienced throughout my life. In expressing my impressions in abstract form, I am consciously freeing form and color from Nature to focus on the essential order of things as I see and feel them.”