$175 Horses in Minnesota signed watercolor 9.75" x 13.75"
$475 Landscape with Village signed 1956 oil on canvas 20" x 26"
$285 Woods Near Redwing signed Jo Rollins watercolor 13.5" x 18.5"
$450 Portrait of Woman signed Jo Rollins oil on canvas 16" x 20"
$250 Boulders in Rocky Mountains National Park signed 1976 watercolor 13" x 20"
$350 Still Life signed 1949 watercolor 18" x 25"
$200 Casablanca signed watercolor 7" x 16"
$375 59th Street from Central Park signed 1966 watercolor 14" x 19"
$300 St. Croix River Boats signed 1936 gouache 13.5" x 17.5"
$100 Paris, France Studio signed 1930 ink wash 10.25" x 12.5"
$175 Untitled (Spain) signed 1974 watercolor 9.5" x 13.5"
$75 In Colorado signed charcoal drawing 8.25" x 11.75"
$75 Nude 1947 (completed at the Minneapolis School of Art) ink wash 17" x 7.25"
SOLD Landscape signed watercolor 5" x 6.75"
SOLD Dock Scene with Boats signed watercolor 21" x 29"
SOLD Landscape signed oil on canvas 18" x 20"
SOLD Three abstract drawings colored pencil 7.5" x 7.5" each
SOLD Lake in Black Forest signed oil on canvas 22" x 30"
SOLD Gun Bunker from World War II signed 1980 watercolor 5.5" x 8"
SOLD Woman sitting signed ink wash 16" x 12"
SOLD Prescott Barn signed watercolor 11 x 16.5
SOLD Trip with MAA signed 1982 watercolor 10.5 x 14.5
SOLD Outdoor market scene signed watercolor 10" x 13.5"
SOLD Dutchtown signed 1942 watercolor 13" x 19"
SOLD Near Stillwater signed watercolor 8.5 x 11.5
SOLD
SOLD Frank Kellogg House signed watercolor 13.5 x 19.5
SOLD North Shore boat houses signed 1948 watercolor
Jo Lutz Rollins (1896-1989)
Josephine Shella Lutz was born in Sherburn, Minnesota on July 21, 1896. She attended Cornell College and the University of Minnesota and pursued artistic training at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and the Minneapolis School of Art.
Rollins credited well-known Minnesota artist and teacher Cameron Booth as having an important influence on her artwork. Rollins also spent a year studying with Hans Hofmann in Munich, Germany, in 1930. Rollins was an art instructor at the University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1965. In 1933, she was a founding member of the Stillwater Art Colony that operated until 1950. In 1945, she married Dick Rollins. In working to balance her life as a married person and an independent artist, Rollins professed, "Women have to fight harder for a place in the art world; households and families often fragment them."
The St. Croix River Valley was among Rollins' favorite subjects to paint, but she also created watercolors of northern Minnesota and several locations throughout Europe, California and Mexico. Rollins preferred painting outdoors, rather than in the studio, and switched exclusively to watercolors in the 1960s to better accommodate this passion. Her oil paintings employ unique colors and application. Rollins often used a palette knife to apply paint directly to the surface, while her watercolors convey the immediacy of direct observation.
Rollins' most enduring legacies are her teaching career of more than 40 years, the establishment of the Stillwater Art Colony and the West Lake Gallery, which she co-founded in 1965 in Minneapolis. The West Lake Gallery was a women's art collective that was active for 20 years. Due to her professional determination, Rollins enjoyed a lengthy career. Her artwork has been widely exhibited in the Twin Cities and can be found in numerous collections throughout Minnesota.
Rollins died on March 29, 1989, at the age of 92.
Jo Lutz Rollins is featured, along with seven other renowned Minnesota artists (Wanda Gag, Clara Mairs, Alice Hugy, Elsa Laubach Jemne, Frances Greenman, Evelyn Raymond, and Ada Wolfe), in a book entitled "Pioneer Modernists - Minnesota's First Generation of Women Artists." This beautiful book, published by Afton Press, is available for purchase at Gallery 5004.