Collect: American Art

Originally born in France in 1895, Paulette Van Roekens immigrated to the United States at a young age and settled near Philadelphia with her family. She attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design) and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1923, she became a professor of drawing and painting at the Moore College of Art. A few years later, she married artist  Arthur Meltzer, who was also her colleague at Moore.

She worked in a variety of mediums, including pastel, oil and monotype. Her work evolved from early classical still lifes and landscapes to more animated, colorful scenes, from circuses and large groups of people in motion to beaches and butterflies.

Van Roekens won many awards and her work has been widely exhibited, both locally at numerous Philadelphia galleries, as well as at national art institutions, such as the National Academy of Design in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Boston Art Club, and the Newport Art Association. She was also a member of the Art Alliance of America, the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.