The daughter of a watercolorist, Jeannette studied art at Vanderbilt University with Eugene Biel-Bienne, a distinguished Viennese Expressionist painter who was friends with the likes of Chagall and Leger. He urged her to devote her life to painting and art. A published writer at a young age, she opted instead for words. During her graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Colorado she sculpted and painted rocks and boulders, elements which she often employs in her current paintings as veritable bas-reliefs.
At first, Jeannette supported her art with words. But words paid far better. Her writing career flourished and relocated her in Manhattan--where for a year she frequently shared a small elevator with Salvador Dali. (He lived in the penthouse of a small 57 West 57th Street building where she worked on a writing project for a client in a floor below.) Despite her charming persistence, Dali, "albeit a notorious flirt," never once deigned to speak a word to her about his art.
In New York City Jeannette studied art at the New School and the Art Student’s League, painted and sculpted and devoured the vital art scene, befriended notable painters and visited galleries while her successful international writing career demanded increasing amounts of her time. Reluctantly, she let her easel go.
Thousands of magazine and newspaper columns and a half dozen books later, while visiting the French Riviera home of an art collector friend, Jeannette dreamed Surrealist landscapes nightly. Immediately upon her return to San Diego she again set up an easel, this time in her garden to paint every day. “There is great joy in moving beyond words,” she says.
Jeannette’s painting style has progressed “far beyond Expressionism.” While her work maintains the bold personal vision of Expressionism, it is now more contained with clean direct lines and clean edges. Elegant subtle colors replace basic colors squirted direct from a tube. She creates serenity and peace in her paintings, frequently a monumental quality with sculptural elements. Very clean. Frequently architectural. Calm.
While the eyes of her viewers are engaged, she wants to insure their minds are provoked.
“I want my viewer to probe my vistas,” she says, “to explore each landscape, blaze trails around its interior corners and savor a respite in another dimension. Each painting provides its own unique and very private escape.”