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Coast artist has made it big after starting on 'the Square
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Pati Bannister with New Orleans Mayor Ernest Morial
By JERRY KINSER
LIVELY ARTS EDITOR
ULFPORT artist Pati Bannister is de-, scribed in a cover story in the upcoming I April issue of Southwest Artist Magazine as ??a phenomenon? by Dr. Gary R. Libby, Director of the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences.
Actually, this marks the second time the presti-geous art magazine has done a cover story on Mrs. Bannister, one of the fastest rising artists in the country.
As Libby puts it in his article: ?Since her delicate and detailed mood-filled, mixed-media paintings of beautiful children and women first hit the American art scene, she has continued to dominate and expand this very special field of figurative realist art."
Recently made an honorary New Orleans citizen by Mayor Ernest Morial when her work was placed in the Townhouse Galleries on Royal Street, Mrs. Bannister's originals are currently in the $17,000-$40,000 range, and her prints are selling well around the world for $285.
?I can do around 15 a year," said Mrs. Bannister, who uses a large second story room of her
East Beach home for a studio. Since deale around the country are waiting for the works, s has rarely had enough paintings to mount a or woman show.
Dealers currently showing her originals are New Orleans, Houston and Carmel, Calif. Tho handling her prints number over 100 in Americ Europe, Mexico and South America.
Asked why she has remained with one subjei haunting young ladies, usually with flowers their hair and near a window, she replied, ?I' just not interested in other themes. I've bare scratched the surface yet. For one thing, I lo painting lace and you can?t put lace on little bo or put flowers in their hair."
Mrs. Bannister, a native of London, Englar has recently taken up sculpture and the sar themes predominate here also.
Her husband, Glynn, who manages her blossoi ing career, has opened an office in the Securi Building in Gulfport to answer all the mail a telephone calls from around the country.
??We decided to go heavily into advertising in t national art magazines and it?s paying off,? s? Bannister. ??We get mail from everywhere a
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everybody, including two penitentiary inmates. One person the other day wrote e' * said simply, ?OK, you win, send me
i ochure.' ?
Pati Bannister has indeed come a long
way since she spent her days painting in New Orleans? famed Jackson Square. Not only is her work eagerly sought out by dealers and collectors all over the country, she has the distinction of having received the E. Emerson Albright Award four separate times.
Her most recent one-woman show was held in 1978 at the Museum of Arts and
Sciences in Daytona Beach and one of her paintings, ?The Cane Chair,? was selected for the museum?s permanent collection.
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