A show coming to the Fort Worth Community Arts Center  will highlight the work of Dallas artist Maryanne Meltzer. Meltzer, who died earlier this year, was a prolific printmaker whose work was shown in several states, and frequently in Texas during the 1980s and 90s.

“Although I never had the opportunity to meet Maryanne Meltzer, I was immediately struck by the quality of her work,” says local art critic Lin Wang who is helping organize the show. “It’s bold and sometimes unconventional, but always well-executed.”

Meltzer, who received her masters degree from the University of Texas at Dallas in her late 60s, was influenced by artists including Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon. Some of her earlier work highlighted in the show shows the influence of American artists George Tooker and Edward Hopper.

“She wrote her thesis on alienation, a frequent theme in Tooker’s work,” Wang says. “Later she did a series of work on the theme of strangers. In the age when human interactions are squeezed through computer or phone screens, it just feels so pertinent to look at her works and mirror our own situation.”

A 1988 exhibit at the Dallas Gallery Artspace included her framed monotypes and freestanding, two-sided painted plywood figures in a case study in the almost universal fear of strangers.

She studied with some of the greats in Texas art including Otis Dozier, Jerry Bywaters and DeForrest Judd. Her mentor at University of Texas was a notable Argentine artist Kazuya Sakai.

A teacher as well, she was president of the Dallas Women’s Caucus for Art and a member of the Board of Directors for the National Women’s Caucus for Art along with other organizations.

“She was always painting- she didn’t stop painting until she couldn’t hold a paint brush anymore,” says daughter Carolyn Carter explaining that while her mother was painting since age 12, she would go back to study art formally after her children started school. “She was interested in the human figure, always inspired by strength in women and was very involved in women’s rights.

“Art was her life and her passion.”

Strangers, the Work of Maryanne Meltzer will open with a reception August 15 and remain on exhibit through August. It will follow Texas Art Collector, Show and Sale of Early Texas Art produced by Vintage Promotions, LLC. More information is available at www.texasartcollector.com