Rose Frantzen Bio

Rose Frantzen

A native of Maquoketa, Iowa, Rose Frantzen studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Palette & Chisel Academy where she met her mentor Richard Schmid, and at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, studying anatomy with the late Dean Keller.

In the early 90’s, Rose traveled extensively, taking painting tours of Australia, Mexico, Guatemala, Russia, and throughout Europe. Her paintings of people and places in the U.S. and abroad went to galleries in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Oklahoma, Utah, and California. In 1991, with her parents, Rose purchased the former city hall in Maquoketa, opening Old City Hall Gallery on the first floor, using the second floor council chambers as a studio. She began to focus on paintings of small town and rural Iowa, painting subjects from life in the studio, around town, and in the surrounding countryside.

Over time, many of her paintings have taken on an allegorical quality in which an abstract or surreal setting presents the individual as an archetypal character seen on his or her own internal stage. For these multi-dimensional works, she incorporates diverse stylistic elements along with gilding, stained glass, and mosaic.

With a grant from the Iowa Arts Council a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts, Rose completed “Portrait of Maquoketa”, a yearlong community-oriented project in which she painted any Maquoketa residents willing to sit for a four or five hour session. All 180 portraits completed for the project were shown at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. from November 6, 2009 to July 5, 2010.

Rose’s work has been featured in US Art, ArtTalk, Southwest Art, Workshop, International Artist, American Artist, and Portrait Signature, and she has demonstrated as a faculty member for the Portrait Society of America . She is represented exclusively by Old City Hall Gallery, where she shows with her husband, Charles Morris.