Theatre Producer Jack Thomas to Present 'A World of its Own' 10/23 - 31

Jack Thomas, currently a producer of the hit Off-Broadway play Freud's Last Session and Broadway's Colin Quinn Long Story Short, will be presenting an exhibition of painter Charlotte Lichtblau's paintings and drawings, beginning this Saturday, October 23rd at the 8th Floor Space, a private gallery located at 17 West 17th Street. The show, entitled A WORLD OF ITS OWN, runs through October 31st with admission daily from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM. This exhibition is curated by Bruce Payne. For appointments, contact Jack Thomas at 917-620-0791.

Charlotte Lichtblau has painted the mountains, lakes and countryside in and around Altaussee, Austria for more than seven decades. Her range of work includes landscapes, fantasias, mythic figures, and biblical scenes transported to this remarkable world. Over 60 works in oil, ink, watercolor, and mixed media are included in this retrospective of a major American and international artist.

Born in Vienna in 1925, Charlotte Lichtblau came to the United States in 1940 with her parents and sister. Since 1950, she has returned repeatedly to Austria, primarily to Vienna and to her childhood summer home in Altaussee, in Austria's Salzkammergut region.

For the past five decades, Lichtblau has exhibited her works in galleries, museums, universities, and churches in New York City and throughout the United States. She has had two major career retrospective exhibitions in Austria, one at the Palais Palffy in Vienna (1994) and the second in the Pfarrheim Arts Center in Bad Aussee, near Altaussee (2002).

For the artist, the discipline of painting is a way of exploring, expressing and communicating the passion of human existence. A significant portion of her work is focused on biblical themes, most notably the Passion of Christ. Here, the visual transformation into imagery addresses familiar religious themes internally and directly. While her paintings of religious subjects are boldly contemporary, they honor both the history of ecclesiastical imagery and the artistic traditions of German Expressionist painting.

A planned career retrospective in 2000 led to the publication of Origin and Transformation: Life and Art of the Painter Charlotte Lichtblau by Albert Lichtblau, who is no relation to the artist. Her drawings were published in Fr. Patrick Ryan's books When I Survey The Wondrous Cross: Scriptural Reflections for Lent (1989) and The Coming of Our God: Scriptural Reflections for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany(1999). For more than four years, her drawings were published weekly in America Magazine.

Lichtblau was an art critic as well, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Herald Tribune, Arts Magazine, and other publications. Her collected reviews and other papers are archived at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

Charlotte Lichtblau's work is represented in museums and private collections across the United States and Europe.

For more information, visit www.CharlotteLichtblau.com.