IN MEMORIAM
Victoria Jutas Kniering
Victoria Jutas Kniering passed away March 2, 2026. She earned a BFA from Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford in 1991 and an MFA from the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts in 1994. Her aptitude for curating art exhibitions developed while she was director of the Gallery on the Green in Canton from 1995 to 2002, while her strong interest in teaching first began during her tenure as an Art Instructor & Art Coordinator for the SPHERE Program at Watkinson School in West Hartford from 1993 to 1996. She taught drawing, printmaking and sculpture in numerous Connecticut art programs and several community colleges until she was appointed Adjunct Professor of Art at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, where she served in that capacity from 1999 to 2020. Meanwhile, Vicki curated and served as juror for numerous art exhibitions throughout Connecticut, exhibited her own prints and sculpture widely, and received Individual Artist Fellowship Grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts in 1995, 2000, and 2006
Grace Bentley-Scheck
Grace Bentley-Scheck passed away on September 7, 2025. Grace's artistic journey with a robust education, earning both her BFA and MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Since 1972, she pursued a fulfilling career as a full-time printmaker, establishing her art studio, Sassafras Press. Her work has transcended borders, being exhibited in the United States, Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Australia. Grace's art has been included in numerous private and public collections, notably at prestigious venues such as the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee, and the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island.
Eric Goldberg
Eric Goldberg passed away in July of 2021. Eric was a talented dedicated artist, a giving caring person and colleague. He was an integral part of the Printmakers Network of Southern New England. He was active in many other print organizations: the Society of American Graphic Artists, the Boston Printmakers, the American Print Alliance and LA Printmaking Society. He was an accomplished printmaker with a passion for drawing and painting.
“My imagination is fueled by the world around me, by places and people and the thoughts and feelings they evoke. I make images that express these concepts and emotions. I want my images to convey both the natural world and deeper truths, which are wordless and need to be expressed through metaphor.”
His copper aquatint etchings are a part of many collections both national and international.
Margot Rubin
Marot Rubin died May 10, 2021. After graduating from Vassar College in 1961, Margot received a fellowhip to study at the Courtauld Institute in London. In 1978 she moved to Providence and took a position at the Newport Art Museum where she taught for 37 years. Her art making followed decades, with the Watergate etchings and large oil portraits of the 1970s, the abstract mountainscapes of the 1980s, and an explosion of monoprints in the 1990s. In the early 2000s she became focused on painting again, working heavily in encaustic. In the 2010s, Margot inaugurated a new era, with an amazing proliferation of ceramic sculptures. In her last years, impacted by Parkinson’s, she took to art making on the iPad, producing layered images that carried on from her rich monotypes.
Joan Washburn Cole
Joan Washburn Cole died March 18, 2018. Joan was a lithographer whose prints had been exhibited throughout the Northeast. She graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and studied printmaking at the University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, University of New Mexico and at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, NM. She was an Associate Printmaker at Discover Graphics, The Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA until 1993 when she established Geaster Printmaking Studio in Mansfield, CT with her friends and fellow printmakers Janine Gugler and Ethel Warkov. In addition to her art, Joan was an educator and taught art in public and private schools, including as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Hartford Art School.