Benicia Public Library is about to get a lot more color.

By unanimous vote last week, Benicia City Council agreed to accept the loan of two large oil paintings by the late artist Julius Hatofsky, which, because of their size, will be displayed elevated on the ceiling supports of the library.

Members of the city Arts and Culture Commission learned that some of Hatofsky’s work might be available for local display as public art pieces, and the commission’s Public Arts Committee worked with the artist’s widow, Linda, to decide which paintings the panel might recommend to the Council at its regular meeting last week.

They chose “Wave,” with cascades of white over blue forms, and “Untitled No. 139,” with bright reds and strong lines.

The commission handed the Council small-scale photographs of the paintings, and the audience viewed pictures on the Council Chamber screens.

“When you see them in person, you’re blown away,” Arts and Culture Commission member Patty Gavin told the Council.

Linda Hatofsky, the artist’s widow, also spoke to the Council, saying she has been “overwhelmed” by the response to her husband’s work.

Hatofsky was born in Ellenville, N.Y. , and studied at the Art Students League of New York, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, in Paris, France, and the Hans Hofmann School before starting his painting career in New York in the 1950s.

By 1961, he had moved to San Francisco and was teaching painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute. He retired in 1995, and died Jan. 1, 2006, in Vallejo.

Hilton Kramer, editor of Arts Magazine, described Hatofsky as one of the most accomplished painters of his generation, illustrative of the Bay Area Abstract Expressionists movement and American Figurative Expressionism.

Hatofsky himself said he focused on “scale, inner light, drawing, surface, rhythm, color,” which he said helped him “focus my emotional intensity and release my imagination.”

“He was the consummate painter,” Linda Hatofsky said, “a loved and respected teacher.”

His works are exhibited in the Whitney Museum in New York; Neuberger Museum in Purchase, N.Y.; Kalamazoo Museum in Kalamazoo, Mich.; Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Ga.; and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Once the commission chose the paintings, its city staff member, Library Director Diane Smikahl, and Building Maintenance Director Rick Knight collaborated to determine how they could be displayed in the library.

The paintings will remain in the library for five years, according to the Hatofsky estate’s agreement with the city.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson praised the city’s art community for its hand in obtaining the temporary exhibit, which she called “a generous gift.”