Jessica Rice

Magnolias

c. 1971

Antwerp, Belgium-born artist Jessica Rice was raised in Africa, and after becoming enamored with the folk art around her, taught herself to paint and sold her work locally. An exhibition of Rice’s paintings in Bukava, Kivu, helped establish her not only as an artist worthy of collecting but introduced her rich Cubist-nativist–style works to the art world. 

Rice moved to San Francisco in 1959. There she enrolled in the San Francisco Academy of Art. Following her graduation in 1964, Rice worked in commercial art in San Francisco and New York and created oil paintings in her free time. By the early 1970s, she moved to Los Angeles and began painting full-time.

Rice traveled part of each year to her seaside studio in Mexico where she produced many of her Fauvist-Cubist works. Working with oil paints and a palette knife, Rice produced colorful and profoundly expressive landscapes, beach scenes, depictions of Mexico’s street vendors and more. She passed away after a battle with cancer in 2016 in Mazatlán, Mexico. 

Whether it’s her portraits, landscapes or figurative paintings, Rice's work commands attention and attracts high prices at auctions. 

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