'Playing With Socks' by Inez Storer, 1978, San Francisco Women's College, San Francisco Art Institute

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Signed lower right, 'Storer' for Inez May Storer (American, born 1933) and dated 1978.

Inez Storer first studied at the … Read more Signed lower right, 'Storer' for Inez May Storer (American, born 1933) and dated 1978.

Inez Storer first studied at the San Francisco College for Women, the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California at Berkeley. She later earned a bachelor's degree at Dominican College in San Rafael and, in 1971, a graduate degree in at California State University in San Francisco.

From Inverness, California, north of San Francisco and working from a studio in Point Reyes, Inez Storer creates mixed-media narrative paintings, collages and assemblages in naive-sophisticated style, which she describes as Magic Realism: "I am a visual raconteur. I use paint to tell stories." Most of these stories are explorations of the human condition with characters who seem allegorically to be walking tightropes. She gets many ideas from her studio collection of old postcards, toys, photos and other random items that she often incorporates into her work. Inez Storer is also known for her prints and drawings.

Storer was born in Los Angeles to German parents who left that country in 1933 to avoid Hitler. Her father got a job in Hollywood with Billy Wilder as an art director, and her mother was an actress and dancer. Inez spent much time as a child on movie sets. She was raised a Catholic as her parents wanted no one to know her mother was Jewish and uses Catholic imagery in her work.

In 1974, she met Andrew Romanoff, a Russian artist who became her second husband. In this marriage, she became a part of Russian royalty because Andrew was the grand nephew of the Czar Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor who, along with his family, was executed. Because of this new dimension to her life, Storer's artwork embodies Russian political themes as well as other political, religious, and personal expressions.

Source:
Bonnie Gangelhoff, "True Stories", Southwest Art, July 2006, p. 143-147 See less