Artist Biography - Verona Burkhard (1910-2004)
Verona Lorriane Burkhard was born on June 8, 1910 to of Henri and Verona P. (Turini) Burkhard, both of whom were artists. She was raised in New Jersey and New York where she studied at the Art Students League under Boardman Robinson and Columbia University under Frank Mechau.
Burkhard was an accomplished painter who was awarded seven WPA mural commissions, which is more than any other Colorado painter including commissions in Wyoming, Montana, North Carolina, and Washington D.C. She went on to design fountains for Main Street in Grand Junction and did interior design for Mesa Rangely Colleges as well as many homes along the Western Slope of Colorado.
From 1929 she painted in the west, buying a cabin in Redstone, Colorado in the 1930's. After heading up the art program at the Potomac School in Washington D.C. from 1945-1946, Burkhard relocated permanently to Colorado 1949 with her mother living both in Redstone, Colorado and in the Palisade, Colorado, near Grand Junction. She built a ceramics and painting studio out of an old barn behind her house and opened an art school in downtown Grand Junction. Burkhard continued to be invested in expanding the art community in the area, serving as one of the founders of the Grand Junction Art Center.
In recognition of her extraordinary achievements as an artist and teacher, she was awarded the Colorado Woman of the Year in 1965.
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