Judith Skoogfors-Prip
Summer's Gold
Summer's Gold
mixed media
29" x 23"
2002
29" x 23"
2002
February 24 through March 14, 2008
Judith Skoogfors-Prip: Thread and Paint: The Last 10 Years
Artist's StatementJudith Skoogfors-Prip: Thread and Paint: The Last 10 Years
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Judy Skoogfors-Prip graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art. She was also a founding member of the Ballet Guild and was performing in Philadelphia and New York, as well as designing costumes for the fledging company during the time she was attending college.
She chose a career as a fashion illustrator and worked in this field in Rochester, NY, where her artist husband (Olaf Skoogfors) was attending graduate school. She was a staff artist, free lanced for various agencies, and continued to perform with the Mercury Ballet.
After returning to Philadelphia, she became a staff artist and began her teaching career at The Philadelphia College of Art, now University of the Arts.
After two years she moved to Moore College of Art and Design where she served as chairperson of the Fashion Illustration Department. After the birth of her two daughters she gave up the position of chair, but continued to teach and held the rank of professor.
She began to do a broader range of illustration, venturing into books and advertising. In addition, she became the Philadelphia reporter for the publication Craft Horizons.
The sudden death of her husband in 1975, when her daughters were still young, made it necessary for her to return to teaching full time.
Later, the need to do work that was deeply personal become strong and she began to exhibit paintings, drawings and works that combined stitchery techniques with painting. During this time she studied printmaking and exhibited etchings and mono prints. She exhibited in the Third Street Gallery of Philadelphia, which she joined in 1993.
In 2000, Judy Skoogfors-Prip retired from her teaching position at Moore College of Art and Design, and moved to Providence. In the summer of 2001 she married artist John Prip. She joined the Providence Art Club and has since exhibited both there and at the University of Rhode Island. She taught a workshop in watercolors for cancer patients at the Women and Infants Hospital. She contributed an illustration, along with written material, to “Undimmed Luster”, a biography of the English choreographer Antony Tudor, with whom she had studied as a young dancer. The illustration is now in the collection of the New York Public Library. In 2005 she returned to teaching, and accepted a position at the Rhode Island School of Design, becoming an adjunct professor in the Apparel Arts Department, where she continues to teach.
Judith Skoogfors-Prip’s work is in private collections in the United States and Europe.