Long-time Arts Benicia member to be honored

Friends remember the late Bea Guttman

BEA GUTTMAN died July 27. A memorial will be held Saturday.
Courtesy Benicia Plein Air Gallery

Artist Bea Guttman, an active member of Arts Benicia whose show, “Soul Vision,” was featured at Gallery 621 in June, passed away July 27 at age 81. The Walnut Creek resident had a studio in the Arsenal for 25 years.

A celebration of Guttman’s life will take place Saturday at Gallery 621.

Several local artists shared memories of Guttman with The Herald by email.

“Bea’s combination of graciousness, determination and passion for painting inspired me,” Lee Wilder Snider said. “Her work was influenced by expressionist painter Kandinsky, who said, ‘The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key of another to cause vibrations in the soul.’ Indeed, Bea’s formidable abstractions call to our spirit, challenging us to go deeper.”

“Artist Bea Guttman touched the lives of many, at every point in her life,” Shirley Hazlett wrote. “I first met Bea in June 2015, at my first artist meeting at Gallery 621. During our session, Bea was as radiant as her paintings — her inspiring ideas advanced our future planning for the gallery. Bea is a model for a life well-lived.”

Mernie Buchanan recalled a story behind one of Guttman’s paintings that was part of a two-person show in 1998.

“The story behind this large, energetic painting started while Bea was struggling to find inspiration in a hot summer studio with a big, fat fly buzzing in circles. What would make most of us nuts got filtered through Bea’s rich imagination and playful wit to become this amazing image,” Buchanan wrote.

“Thank you Bea for showing me how to observe and transform the mundane into something of humor and beauty. Thank you Bea for showing me how to lighten up. You’ve left a magical legacy.

Mary Shaw, program coordinator for Arts Benicia, called Guttman one of the “quiet cornerstones of the Benicia Arsenal artist community.”

“She was always warm and welcoming to everyone who visited her studio and was so supportive of Arts Benicia and all the Arsenal artists,” Shaw said.

“When I started working for Arts Benicia in 2011, Bea visited the Arts Benicia gallery during my first official installation — Open Studios. She was wonderfully supportive and complimentary of all my efforts. I remember another local artist telling me that if Bea approved of my installation, then I was golden.”

TaVee McAllsiter Lee met Guttman about 12 years ago while working on the art exhibit “Gender: a Visual Conversation” in the Diablo Valley College Art Gallery. “At the time I didn’t know her well but was struck with the beauty of her work. Over the years I looked forward to stopping by her Arsenal studio nearly every year during Open Studios. She was always working on something new and intriguing in terms of exploration of form and color,” Lee wrote.

“Eventually I became a member of a critique group that Bea belonged to. It was a group that focused on abstract work; I was just moving into more abstraction at the time while it was something Bea had been exploring for decades. Bea was a vital part of this group, always offering genuine critique, which means that she was clear about the parts of a piece that she felt worked as well as those she thought did not work so well.

“As an artist I valued and appreciated her candor about the difficulties of a piece and the spirit of friendship and growth in which we discussed our work.

“One of Bea’s gifts to me was leading by example,” Lee wrote. “She showed me how to be and function as an artist, with dedication, curiosity, preserverance, joy and quiet but clear confidence in the value of pursuing one’s passion. She will be dearly missed.”

Paula Boas would carpool with Guttman from Walnut Creek to their studios in the Arsenal.

“Once we arrived, she wasted no time in getting to work and quickly would become immersed in her painting process,” Boas wrote. “And although I could not see the actual painting that was under way, I would see what I called the Bea painting dance. I would see Bea pass by her window, brush in hand, walking backward. She would pause to view and assess, and then with a determined step walk forward to place her next brush strokes. This painting rhythm would repeat and repeat and repeat.”

Kari Brinck shared a studio with Guttman. “Bea, my dear friend and studio-mate, I can still hear her outside the studio door, her hands full of stuff, fumbling to find her keys, and I have to stop myself from rushing to the door to help her in. Her eyes always sparkled when she entered the studio, excited to start what usually was six- to seven-hour days of painting, and always standing. Working, reworking, searching for the right expression through her colors and shapes.

“She would generously lend her keen eye and share her knowledge and experience with me, whenever I was stuck,” Brinck wrote.

“The week before she died, I was called up by one of Bea’s daughters Suzanne (Guttman Healy), who explained that Bea kept talking about holding a party for me to celebrate my recent graduation,” Brinck wrote. “Bea was too weak to call herself, but with the help of her beautiful daughters, she invited our common artist friends, and held a party with balloons, cake and Prosecco. The last full sentence I heard her say was that day, and she said, ‘This is what life is all about,’ referring to the gathering of family and friends, celebrating.

“It was a celebration of life. That is the spirit of Bea.”