Tune in to PBS (Channel 10) at 10:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, to see UNLV faculty from the departments of art and dance featured in a special, Rita Asfour: Art Her Way.
Last October, art professor Robert Tracy curated the "Art Her Way" exhibition featuring ballet and showgirl costumes in the Peter Lind Hayes - Mary Healy Lobby Gallery of Ham Concert Hall. The event also featured a panel discussion with Tracy, dance department chair Louis Kavouras, and dancer and Pilates instructor Dolly Kelepecz-Momot, as well as a very special dance department performance. PBS filmed much of the event. College of Fine Arts associate dean Sean Clark also is featured in the special.
Rita Asfour was born in 1933 of Armenian-American heritage. A dynamic impressionist artist, Asfour was trained at the renowned Leonardo Da Vinci Academy where she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1959.
Asfour's traditional, signature style is inspired by her various travels throughout Europe, the Americas, and the South Seas. After earning her fine arts degree, she traveled throughout Europe. Supporting her creative exploits with a successful career as an illustrator, she worked as a magazine illustrator for five years at a popular Lebanese magazine in Beirut. Her illustration work has graced several magazine covers, children's magazines, art books, and advertisements.
Rita Asfour experiments in several mediums including oil on canvas, pastel on board, and paper relief. Her sentimental oils and pastels enkindle the romantic ambiance of traditional art and, consequently, maintain her constant appeal. Several of Asfour's works are romantic images of women or children occupied by simple day-to-day frivolities. She paints life with such comfort and genteel spirit that she negates the distracting realities of today.
