JULIA COURTNEY
ABOUT ME
Artist Julia Courtney works in the of mediums of watercolor, printmaking, photography and mosaics. Courtney’s international travels and work as a collections curator for The Art Complex Museum and the Springfield Art Museums (curator emeritus) informs and inspires her work. Surrounded by art, both historical and contemporary expands and motivates Courtney to experiment with new ideas and ways of translating them into visual form.
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When painting, Courtney works both from still lifes and photographs taken from around the world from her studio in the suburbs of Boston as well as her home on Cape Cod, “I am fortunate to work in a museum where I am encircled in art and have the privilege of researching and working with museum collections. The ability to see the expansive variety of work created by artists through the ages, whether as paintings, works on paper or as decorative art influences the choices I make and provides endless material from which to work. I plan to continue to explore this for a long time.”
“I have a curious obsession with tulips, having visited numerous tulip festivals around the globe. I marvel at the fact that tulips are the only flower that continues to grow after they are cut, a symbol of perseverence.” Courtney relates to a quote from American novelist Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood), “Tulips make me happy.”
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Julia Courtney holds master’s degrees in art/museum education (Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and art history/museum studies (Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and holds a CAGS in Expressive Art Therapy (Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island). She is the Collections Curator for The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts and has worked in the museum field for 25 years. She published two professional manuscripts: The Legal Guide for Museum Professionals (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) and Is it Okay to Sell the Monet: Deaccessioning and Museums (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017). Courtney is an adjunct faculty member for the Graduate Museum Studies Program at Tufts University and Western State Colorado University.