Born: 1949 Detroit, MI.  Living in the Wood River Valley of Idaho since 1971.  Active as a painter since age 3.

Special Honors

U.S. WHITE HOUSE and Presidential Library, 2003, commissioned to paint an Idaho scene on a chicken egg by the American Egg Board for display and permanent collection, with White House reception.

BEST OF SHOW at Sun Valley Lab Auction, 2001, painted fiberglass dog voted by popular vote.

Fulcrum Press, 2001, painting used for book cover, “Bitterbrush Country”, by Diane Josephy Peavey.

Sun Valley Center for the Arts, 1991-1998, Sun Valley, ID; Instructor: Pastels, Oils, Drawing & Plein Aire.

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian & Western Art, 1992, Indianapolis, IN; Invitational show.

Indianapolis Art League, 1992, Indianapolis, IN; taught week-long workshop in Pastels.

Boise Museum of Art-7th Idaho Biennial, 1992, Boise, ID; selected for juried exhibition with mention by curator.

Calgene Contemporary Fine Art Competition, 1990, Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA; selected for exhibition by jurors Wayne Thiebaud and David Gilhooly – with mention by reviewer in the Davis Enterprise Weekend.

Big Sky Biennial VI, 1990, Idaho State U.; selected for seven-state juried exhibition.

Mountain Home AIR FORCE BASE Hospital, 1989; awarded purchase of 23 paintings, including a 7 panel-28 ft. mural, two 8 ft. triptychs and 10 individual paintings.

Corporate & Government Collectors include: Bank of America, US Bank, Albertson's Corporation and Hailey Medical Clinic (16 paintings and carvings). +  UNITED STATES AIR FORCE (23 paintings)

Exhibitions

Wood River Valley Studio Tour + Exhibition at Wood River Fine Arts Gallery, 2013
Sun Valley Center for the Arts,  2011 & 2010, Special Exhibitions
Tivoli Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT, 2009 - since 1990 - group shows
Ketchum Art Festival, Sun Valley ID, July 2007
Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum ID - group show May 2006
Wood River Gallery, Ketchum, ID, 2005 group shows. Featured Artist, May 28 - July 1, 2005
Big Wood Artists’ Gallery, Ketchum, ID, 2003, group show
Barry Peterson Jewelers, Ketchum, ID, 2002 & 2001 - One Women shows
Labstract Gallery, Ketchum, ID, 2001, show of paintings & painted dogs, before Sun Valley Lab Auction
Lynn Toneri Gallery, Ketchum, ID 2000 - group shows
Kneeland Gallery, Sun Valley, ID, 2000 - since 1986 - group shows
First Bank of Idaho, Ketchum, ID, 2000, 1999 & 1998  - One Woman Shows
Emerald City Fine Art, Seattle, WA, 1997 group show
Art Source Gallery, Boise, ID, 1996 Special Exhibition
Kneeland Gallery, Las Vegas, NV, 1994- since 1990 - group shows
John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA, 1992 - since 1990 - group shows
Brown's Gallery, Boise, ID, 1991 - since 1987 - group shows
Cogswell Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO 1989 since 1986 - group shows

Studies with Master Artists and Education

Ethel Parsons Paullin, painter-mural artist (Ginna's great-aunt and teacher, Listed in Who's Who in American Art) 
Robert Bateman, wildlife painter
Joe Baker, oil painter
George Carlson, pastel painter-sculptor (over 150 hrs)
Gordon Cook, oil painter
David Dunlop, oil + water color painter
Sheila Gardner, oil + water color painter
Veryl Goodnight, sculptor
Daniel Greene, portrait artist
Jack Heines & Jessica Zemsky, plein aire painters
Peter Holbrook, photo-realist painter
Sam Scott, expressionist painter
Nancy Stonington, water color painter
Wayne Thiebaud, oil painter
Theodore Villa, water color painter
Andrew Young, egg tempera painter
Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts - assorted classes, 1968
Northwood Institute of Indiana, Bachelor Degree in the Performing Arts, 1967-71
Boise State University Art Department - assorted classes, 1977-79
Boise State University Associate Degree in Engineering Drafting, Physics & Math, 1977-79

Brief Biography

     Born in 1949, Ginna began painting at age 3. She remembers thinking that “playing is fun, but painting is essential”. At age 8, she had her first formal lesson with her great-aunt Ethel Parsons Paullin (Who's Who in American Art - see Background Influence below). At 12, she began copying old masters paintings in oils, and then in soft pastels and received her first commissioned pieces in her teens. Fantasy scenes made up much of her early work, which she has continued to produce and sell throughout her life. Her paintings are in collections in most every state in America and many corporations, the US Air Force and the G.W. Bush White House Presidential Library collection.

     Using paints and pastels equally, the “plein aire” discipline honed her skills, but fantasies, sometimes realistic, other times dream-like, still dominate her detailed imagery, while abstraction evolves in passages of her paintings, and sometimes is the whole painting. Her ultimate satisfaction comes with combining all these disciplines (realism, impressionism, expressionism, and abstraction) into a single painting.

     All her images are translated through a prism of her intrigue with the concepts of Quantum Physics and the ubiquitous exchange, or sharing of energy and connectivity with all matter and beings and the spirit world.

     Depicting the physics of color and light is the common element in all her work, the fundamentals of which she has been teaching, since 1991, at the request of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts (through 1998), plus the Indianapolis Art League and also many private students, such as Mary Roberson and Deborra Marshall Bohrer. See her website, www.deborra.com.

     Many of Ginna’s fantasies are inspired by her experiences as she travels around her home in Idaho, and other parts of the world with her husband, Ken. Horse-back riding, scuba diving and sea kayaking with wild whales and dolphins, mountain biking, and back-country skiing have given her many experiences she paints and carves. 

     In 1995 Ginna began carving her frames, as well as creating carved wood wall-hangings that she paints with oils. She also paints scenes on the mats of the pastel pictures. In 2001 she was asked to paint six of her fantasy landscapes on fiberglass forms of Labrador Retriever dogs for the Sun Valley 'Lab' Auction. This exposure led her to be requested by the American Egg Board to paint one of her scenes for the WHITE HOUSE on the surface of a hollow chicken egg, for a display of eggs representing each State in 2003. It was retained for the G. W. Bush PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY.

Background Influence of Great Aunt Artists

     Ginna Parsons Lagergren is the great-niece of both Ethel Parsons Paullin and Elsie Parsons (sisters), who were both graduated from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. Ginna's fascination with detail and stylized imagery is one of the legacies of both her great-aunts artistic works.

     Painter Ethel Parsons Paullin, is listed in "Who's Who in American Art", having spent her life as a mural artist and portrait painter living in New York City. Some of Ethel's greatest mural works can be found on the ceilings of St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Ave (across from the Waldorf Astoria) and the Albany, NY Federal Building.  She also designed stained glass windows for the Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church and many other churches, plus painted many portraits, including a president of Oberlin. Her work received Golden Awards at International exhibitions in 1913 and 1966. Her paintings are distinguished by her finely detailed depictions of stylized scenes of great beauty and pleasant to look at images.

     From her college graduation in 1909 Ethel was employed by Albert Herter to paint murals. In 1918 she left to begin contracting her own jobs, such as the entire massive chancel of St Bartholomew Chapel. As a young painter, Ethel had a loft studio in the famous “Tenth Street Studio Bldg.”; former home to notables such as William Merritt Chase. She spent her latter years in a brownstone artist's studio off Central Park at 54 W 74th St where she had a friendship with Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine who, upon her death, left Ethel 1/8th of her estate.

     Ginna began her drawing training with Ethel when she was 8 years old, starting with proportions of the human face. It was Ethel's inspiration that motivated Ginna to develop as an oil painter at the age of 12. Drawing lessons utilizing still-life and people-life were combined during annual visits, along with critiques of the year's work. These were augmented by exchanging letters and sketches in the interim. This "apprenticeship" continued until Ginna was 22 years old upon Ethel's death, at her age of 83, in 1971. 

     Ethel's sister, Elsie Parsons, became a Master Craftsman in the Society of Arts & Crafts, a lifelong jewelry maker, working in the studio of Edward Oakes, whose collaborative works are treasured in the National Cathedral in Washington DC, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Elsie joined Ethel in the annual visits to Ginna’s home bringing her prize pieces to show. It was the exposure to Elsie's exquisite and minutely detailed hand-wrought jewelry that also had a significant influence on Ginna's development as an artist; specifically her ability to paint fine detail.

End of 'A Life in Art'
Next: Family of Artists