EMILY BRETT LUKENS

1943 - 2020

LUKENS
EMILY BRETT

Well known printmaker, artist and teacher, 76, died suddenly from cardiac arrest Saturday, May 16, 2020 at her Philadelphia home. A beloved teacher at the Samuel F. Fleisher Art Memorial for fifteen years, she taught advanced lithography, drawing composition and painting fundamentals to an often-returning cast of enthusiastic students of all ages. "Her students loved her classes," Joan Rainer wrote to the family. "We had a number of regulars who wouldn't take anyone else's classes."

Ms. Brett Lukens, who studied under famed printmaker Hitoshi Nakazato and earned a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania (1981) and subsequently taught print-making there, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Moore College of Art and Design. She was a well-known artist in the mid-Atlantic states and on Deer Isle, Maine, where she and her husband, architect and artist William Lukens, have a summer home.

After raising her two children, she went back to school and focused on establishing an art career, financing it at first with retail jobs at Burberry and Thomas Moser Cabinet Makers. She was one of the pioneering artists to stake out loft space in Old City factories in 1985. Her friends recall a great cook who loved Country Western dancing, refused to tip less than 20%, had an infectious laugh, and no end of love for cats which she adopted from Maine's The Ark Animal Shelter, which she had supported for years.

"My work is about texture," she once explained in an artist's statement. "I use these images to collage and paint mixed-media works that represent close-up and far away views of the earth." Her nonrepresentational images often combined oil paint stick, acrylics, graphite and sand. She enjoyed collecting found objects -- various shaped stones, small rocks, shells and rusted metal remnants. Scattered in her studio located near the Italian Market, the small piles of these items gave her inspiration and ideas for her art. She often took students there to show them how artists set up their working spaces. When the pandemic hit earlier this year, she continued to meet with her class via Zoom.

Student Julie Levitt marveled how Ms. Brett Lukens did not "pressure students to follow her,", but would "observe and inquire and mostly listen, intently and well… She told us to be courageous and confident enough to 'dare to be ugly.'"

Her art was acclaimed. In Maine Art Now, 1991, author Edgar Allen Beem, wrote "Emily Brett's three mixed-media 'Rock Form' drawings stand out as strong, simple masses, handily drawn and nicely differentiated by surface texture. They work both as representation and act." The Philadelphia Inquirer published her work in two 1995 articles, "Meet the Neighbors" and "A Pairing of Peers," by art critic Edward Sozanski.

Her many awards include the 1983 Corporate Purchase Award from the Charlotte North Carolina Prints and Drawing Society, the 1983 Purchase Award, West Chester (PA) University Print Exhibition, and 1991 Best of Show, Abington Art Center in Abington Township.
Ms. Brett Lukens exhibited her work in many solo and group exhibitions. Among solo exhibitions: "Artists on Paper II" Dolan/Maxwell Gallery - Philadelphia, "Recent Works" Lawrence Hall Gallery - Rosemont, "Beyond Geometry - Maine Coast Artists" Rockport, ME, "Moore on 2nd" Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, "15 Year Survey: Paintings, Drawings and Prints" Dreyfus & Associates, and "Double Take" The George School- Newtown, PA. Emily Brett Lukens was born on September, 13, 1943 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan to Edward H. and Eleanor Wallace.

In addition to her husband she is survived by son Peter Brett and his wife Amy Prozan, sister Carol Ohr, grandchild Molly Brett Silverman, nieces Jennifer Farragher and Catherine Finnegan; great nieces and nephews Patrick, Jenna and Connor Farragher, and Luke and Kyle Finnegan. Her step-daughters include Helina McClatchy, Annie Kirkpatrick, Molly Dompe and Ellie Lukens. Her step grandchildren, Samuel and Gus Wright, Wren and Russell Kirkpatrick, Henry and Sylvie Dompe, and Orrie and Alexandra Carroccia. Emily was predeceased by her daughter Dr. Alison Brett and nephew Dr. Joseph Ohr.

A memorial service to celebrate her joy of life, sense of humor, honesty and compassion is planned at Philadelphia's historic 1761 St. Peter's Church, at a date to be determined. The family requests that contributions in her name be made to Philabundance, 3616 S. Galloway St. Phila., PA 19148.