Florida Artists Group

Phyllis' Bio:

Phyllis Bek-gran grew up in Detroit, Michigan where she started her career in advertising art. She moved to New York, NY when her husband, Herman Bek-gran, returned from WWII. She was a successful free-lance illustrator in New York City until she retired in 1986. Herman had a successful career as an art/creative director for New York agencies while painting weekends and holidays.
In 1965 she was invited to teach one day a week at Parsons School of Design, NYC – a position she enjoyed for over twenty years.
By chance Phyllis and her husband, Herman, went to Monhegan Island, Maine in 1966. It was rainy, cold, windy and rustic and they fell in love with the place. For the next 28 years they returned to the island every August to paint, walk the trails and climb the cliffs. Plein aire painters along the trails were a common sight.
It was while on Monhegan that Phyllis tried her hand at oil on canvas portraits in 1978 and knew she had found a new creative expression. In later years, with her unique ability to capture the physical likeness as well as the inner expression of her models, she painted many portraits with watercolors on paper as well as her more formal oil portraits
Phyllis moved to Venice, Florida in 1991 and then had time to devote to painting. She has won many awards and prizes for her watercolors of still lives, flowers, buildings, portraits (oil and watercolor), and landscapes. Her paintings hang in many private and public collections throughout the US.
Phyllis is a member of the Venice Art Center, a signature member of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society, and the Florida Artists Group. She has taught classes and workshops locally.
Her educational background includes the Kansas City Art School (Kansas City, MO.), Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Museum Art School (both in Brooklyn, NY) and Farleigh Dickinson University (Teaneck, NJ.) She has studied with Raphael Soyer, Judi Wagner, Tony VanHaselt, Janet Rogers, Charles Reed, and Carla O’Connor, to name a few.