Yvonne working on replication of  Botticelli's "Birth of Venus"

 Once upon a time...a bedtime story about an Ugly Duckling touched the empathetic heart of a child and she drew a realistic duck from the image in her mind.  A mother was amazed and a passion for art was born in a three-year-old child...

At twelve, Yvonne began studying with Robert L. Bruns, a classical artist and dedicated teacher, who received his training at the Art Student’s League of New York and the Academie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. After a few weeks in Mr. Bruns’ beginner class, Yvonne moved on to his live portrait classes for young people. Several years later, Mr. Bruns offered Yvonne the opportunity to attend two additional weekly adult classes in exchange for cleaning his studio. As a “shop- girl/apprentice”, Yvonne learned much from her kind mentor. Many years passed before she fully appreciated and understood her teacher’s great generosity.

Growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, Yvonne attended Wade Hampton High School. She entered Central Wesleyan College (now Southern Wesleyan University) in 1965 and began a major in Biology and Chemistry. In 1968, she transferred to USC, graduating with honor from the College of Pharmacy in 1971.

After graduation, a pharmacy career and rearing three sons left little time for any art other than that which was conceived and executed in the mind. When the time came that she could return to “artistic pursuits”, her own personal “renaissance” began as she directed her study toward the concept of being taught, rather than intimidated, by the “Old Masters”.

This self-study of the “masters” produced improvement; however, a major turning point was the result of a gift in 1996 from her husband - a week at a Covino Workshop. The discipline and structure of the classical academic method presented by Frank Covino complemented the excellent foundation that she had received as a young teenager from Robert Bruns.

Included in Yvonne’s portfolio are original portraits and reproductions of works from Botticelli to Bouguereau. Portraits include those of University of South Carolina professors Joseph LeConte, Dr. Robert Beamer, Dean Julian Fincher, and Dean Farid Sadik.

Yvonne has been the solo artist in seven Carolina shows and her work has been featured in Cape Fear Arts Alive, The Greenville Journal, the Catholic Miscellany, the Palmetto Pharmacist, Southern Wesleyan University’s Focus Magazine, The Spalding Farm News Letter and the Greenville News City People.

For several years, Yvonne conducted a workshop in Raleigh, North Carolina. In October 2004, Yvonne expanded her horizons by becoming a Louvre copyist. Continuing to study the masters, she painted on site in September 2005 at the Accademia Carrara in a Sister Cities International exchange between Greenville and Bergamo, Italy. In October 2005, Yvonne again had the opportunity to paint at the Louvre, while her copy of Vouet’s Allegory of Wealth was on exhibit at the 2nd Salon des Copistes du Louvre.

Yvonne at work "Mignard"