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Barbara Gillette Price, 87, formerly of Philadelphia, celebrated painter and designer, former president of Moore College of Art & Design, former dean of Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, former vice president for academic affairs at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, fine arts teacher, mentor, and role model, died Friday, April 24, of age-associated decline at a hospital in Granada, Spain. <\/p>\n
A lifelong artist and longtime educator, Ms. Gillette Price<\/a> liked to skip her high school classes in the 1950s and wander around the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>. In sixth grade, she told The Inquirer in 1994, her artistic talent drew attention from the teacher when her drawing of a female form was all too accurate.<\/p>\n She took Saturday classes at Temple University<\/a>\u2019s Tyler School of Art and the Fleisher Art Memorial when she was young, and earned a scholarship to the old Philadelphia Museum School of Art. She married artist Melville Price in 1957, moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 1958, and earned bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees<\/a> in fine arts at the University of Alabama. <\/p>\n She joined Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1978, the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1982, and Moore in 1994. At each stop, she renovated nearby old buildings into studios and galleries, expanded curriculum, and invigorated students with international and innovative programs. <\/p>\n At Moore, she increased enrollment, established a career center, and personally refurbished her three-story studio on North Second Street into a gallery where students exhibited their work and handled logistics and publicity. She also forged working relationships with the School District of Philadelphia<\/a> and other art institutions, supervised an advertising campaign for women artists, and served as a role model for working artists in academia.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why I think my presence at Moore is a good thing,\u201d she told The Inquirer in 1994.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout her career, she championed innovation in arts education, expanded international opportunities for\u00a0students,\u00a0and strengthened connections between\u00a0artists and their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Former colleagues at Moore School of Art & Design about Ms. Gillette Price<\/p>\n In 1998, Rochelle Levy, then chair of Moore\u2019s board of trustees, said: \u201cBarbara has really been our ambassador out there. She has set an incredible role model for the students as a woman artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Gillette Price<\/a> left Moore in 1998, moved to Spain in 2000, taught art to primary school students, and continued to create and show her work. \u201cHer commitment to arts education helped shape generations of creative thinkers,\u201d former colleagues at Moore said in a tribute<\/a>. \u201cHer legacy lives on through the institutions she helped strengthen, the students she inspired, and the vibrant body of artistic work she leaves behind.\u201d<\/p>\n As an artist, Ms. Gillette Price<\/a> was a colorist and inspired by what she called her \u201clabyrinth of imagination.\u201d<\/a> She expressed herself often in themes<\/a> and collages, and was adept at abstract and figurative works on canvas, paper, wood, silk, and other textiles.<\/p>\n One critic said her work \u201cis of an inherent elegance that emerges from excellent craftsmanship and an intelligent narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n She showed in dozens of solo and group exhibitions in Spain, Philadelphia, Maryland, Michigan, Washington, and elsewhere, and liked to work in the gallery as well as her studio. She painted about nature, light, woman\u2019s perspectives, isolation and fear during the COVID-19 pandemic, and other topics. <\/p>\n \u201cMy goal has always been to explore and contemplate my inner world from perspectives that range from direct observation to buried memories.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Gillette Price<\/p>\n \u201cI seek to make the ordinary extraordinary,\u201d she said on her website, barbaragilletteprice.com<\/a>. \u201cI am inspired by images I accumulate as I travel and view the world about me. This takes the form of remembered landscapes, figurative compositions, and subtle political statements.\u201d <\/p>\n She was active in the Civil Rights movement in Alabama in the 1960s, worked with the Woman\u2019s Caucus for Art in Washington in the 1970s, and taught ceramics, painting, and drawing at the old Corcoran School of Art & Design in Washington and elsewhere. She belonged to the College Art Association and was on boards at the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the Philadelphia Art Commission, and other organizations.<\/p>\n She earned grants for her painting and wrote essays and white papers about art. In one paper, she said: \u201cThe arts are the humanizing element in the education of the citizens of the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n Barbara Amelia Gillette<\/a> was born June 26, 1938, in Philadelphia. She and her family spent many summers in Atlantic City<\/a>, and she graduated from Philadelphia High School for Girls.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Why did best-selling author Carol Saline email The Inquirer\u2019s obit writer?<\/a><\/p>\n She took piano lessons, attended Saturday concerts at the Philadelphia Orchestra for years, and hung out with high school boyfriend Edward Cutler and others at jazz clubs and the Gilded Cage coffee shop.<\/p>\n Melville Price died in 1970, and she reconnected with Edward Cutler. They married, had a daughter, Michelle, and lived in Washington. They divorced later, and he died earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider my mother\u2019s greatest achievement to be the way she showed up as a parent,\u201d her daughter said. \u201cHer artistic legacy can be found in her paintings, drawings, textiles, and exhibitions. Her personal legacy lives on in the people she inspired, mentored, encouraged, and welcomed into her life.\u201d <\/p>\n In addition to her daughter, Ms. Gillette Price is survived by a son-in-law, Eric Maroldo, and other relatives. A sister died earlier. <\/p>\n Services were held earlier. <\/p>\n Donations in her name may be made to Alhama Street Animal Protection<\/a> in Granada, Spain. <\/p>\n