Lynne Golob Gelfman

GELFMAN, LYNNE GOLOB 75, died peacefully on January 20, 2020, in Miami, FL. An abstract painter, Gelfman had more than 40 solo shows including a 2019 solo exhibition of her work at The Perez Art Museum Miami. She began her professional painting career in New York in 1966. In 1972, she and her husband, Dan, started a flower farm outside of Bogotá, Colombia and moved to Miami, an important import gateway for flowers. A formative period in Bogotá, as an American Field Service exchange student, had already introduced Gelfman to the culture and landscape of Colombia. This as well as the diverse, subtropical world of Miami became important influences in her work. Gelfman was a risk taker and experimenter who celebrated the unexpected in the painting process. "I'm obsessed by the tension between freedom and control, intent and accident, order and chance, the asymme-trical and the balanced," she said of her work. "A mistake becomes an opportunity. The formula becomes an arena for innovation. I give myself the freedom to be imperfect, to play." Her work is in many public and private collections as well as in the permanent collections of numerous museums. She was active in the Miami arts commu-nity, where she mentored and encouraged many young artists. In the last 15 years, she developed art projects with underserved children in an afterschool program at The Barnyard, Coconut Grove. Her friends will remember her vitality, her generosity, her ready, infectious laughter, and her gift of making the world visible and present to others, both by exploring the funda-mental patterns of nature through her art and in the visual observations shared with family and friends. Gelfman was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 10, 1944, and raised in New York City and Scarsdale, N.Y. She was educated at PS 84 in the Bronx, Scarsdale High School, Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University where she earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree. She is survived by husband Dan, son Josh (Jen), daughter Laura (Gabe) and grandchildren Asher, Henry, Meera and Zeke, and brother Richard (Lucia). Memorial donations may be made to The Barnyard - https://coconutgrovecares.org/donate.