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About

Jean Marie Wertheimer Stern was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. As an undergraduate, she studied art history at Barnard College under Meyer Shapiro and painting at the Woodstock Art School under Arnold Blanche. Additional art studies were pursued at Cornell University and the Arts Students League.

After graduating in 1958, Stern attended the École des Beaux Arts in Fountainbleau, France, and was awarded a Fulbright. During her time abroad, her work received favorable Paris press. Stern then went on to pursue an MFA at the University of Arizona as their first fine arts master's student.

She would also in this period marry the composer Jacob Stern and give birth to two children. The young couple moved from Tucson to Buffalo to Ossining, New York, where they spent three decades before returning to Tucson in 1995. The landscapes of the Hudson River and the Arizona-Sonora Desert, as well as Cayuga Lake (where Stern summered as a child)—were to have a profound impact on the formal and psychological aspects of her paintings.

In the intervening years, Stern’s work has been featured in numerous juried and solo exhibits. Venues include the Everson Museum in Syracuse, Albright Knox in Buffalo, University of Kansas-Lawrence, Ohio University-Athens, the Garrison Art Center in upstate New York, and the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers.

Stern was a long-time member of the Brandreth Studios, located in the Olive Opera House in Ossining. She also co-founded the Rancho Linda Vista Arts Community in Oracle, Arizona. As an art educator, Stern taught in the New York area at Scarborough Country Day School, Transfiguration School, and Mercy College. She also trained youth in art and business, under the Head Start program in Ossining. Her inclusive teaching approach was to inspire many artistic careers.

Stern was represented for 15 years by the Davis Dominguez Gallery in Tucson, until they closed in 2020. Her most recent exhibits include a solo exhibition of paintings at RLV Gallery in Oracle, AZ, and a group show at Tohono Chul Gallery in Tucson.

View Jean’s In Memoriam Page (PDF)