Susan Kuznitsky Sold at Auction Prices

I was very lucky that my parents noticed my interest in art all the way back in high school and signed me up at the Village Art School in the suburbs of Chicago where I grew up. The owner and teacher was the late Joe Abbrecia who went on to become a very well-known Western Artist in Kalispell, Montana. There I had a very traditional art education, working in charcoal from plaster casts, then oils, then watercolors. Joe recognized my passion and talent and guided me to the American Academy of Art in Chicago after high school.


Fresh out of art school I worked as a freelance portrait artist for a Chicago chain of department stores. I didn’t know it then but for the next 4 years I got the best ‘on the job’ training that I could get painting 25-minute portraits, all ages, all types!

A huge advantage to art school in downtown Chicago was exposure to the amazing Art Institute. I fell in love with the Impressionists and became completely smitten with the pastels of that era. Since there was very little instruction at that time in this medium, I decided to move to Woodstock, New York to study with Master Artist Albert Handell. It just so happened that Mr. Handell needed a studio assistant. I worked in that capacity for the next two years.


Mr. Handell not only taught me about pastels and oils but also how to teach. He would have me follow him from easel to easel during his workshops. Listening to him answer students’ questions and watching his ‘hands on’ approach continues to influence how I teach to this day. After two years in New York, I opened my own studio in Chicago where I taught workshops and classes. This led to some years of traveling and teaching across the U.S. Another highlight of time back in Chicago was in the mid 1980’s when I had the good fortune of painting at the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art with another living Master Painter, Richard Schmid. This was a time of tremendous personal challenge and growth. I was juggling a full-time career while caring for my late husband who had terminal cancer. My first husband’s death deepened my desire to experience life to its fullest and to continue to paint and create.


In the early 1990’s I remarried. We moved to the Pacific Northwest and started a family. I continued to paint and teach as much as I could while raising our two boys. Over two decades later the boys are grown and on their own. Sadly, my husband died suddenly at the end of 2017. Throughout the years of joy and sorrow the one constant has been my love of art. It has been the lifeline that has kept me moving forward.



Artist Statement

"My life’s work is to leave the world more beautiful than I found it. I look for the light and beauty. It is everywhere... My job is to translate it onto canvas and share it."