SALEM, Ohio – Salem High School graduate, Don Getz, will donate 11 of his original, framed pieces of artwork to a fund-raiser held in his name to benefit the school’s alumni scholarship fund.
The Don Getz Art Raffle will be June 1, 2 p.m., at the Butler Institute of American Art/Salem Gallery and coincides with the Class of 1952 reunion, which is scheduled that weekend.
The artwork. Getz, an internationally-recognized artist, is donating the following watercolors: Spring Shadows, Sunlit Farm, First Snowfall in Dome, Yosemite, Fall Buggy Ride, Valley Outcropping, Hunter and His Mount, Study of Day Lilies, Foggy Maine, 1929 Packard Phaeton and Harbor Lights.
All of the pieces donated to the raffle are on display at the Mountz Gallery on South Broadway Avenue, and tickets can be purchased at this location.
Tickets are $5 each or five for $20. The winners do not have to be present at the gallery.
Fund-raising organizers are hoping to reach $5,000 in ticket sales, all of which will be donated to the alumni scholarship fund.
Getz also painted a one-of-a-kind red and black 1952 Ohio license plate with the letters “QUAKRS” specifically for the fund raiser. The license plate is painted in the school colors and resembles an actual plate. The framed plate and the original graphite sketch will be auctioned off together.
Esteemed artist. Getz’s acrylic and graphite drawings can be found in museums, businesses, universities and private collections across the United States, Canada and Europe, including Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Holland and Switzerland. He has also won awards, including four gold medals, at every national exhibition in the United States.
Getz said he likes to think his art speaks for itself. His work is not a historic record, he said. Instead, it is a vision of his view of subjects he favors.
He has been a contributing editor for The Artist’s Magazine for 15 years, and his works have appeared in this magazine among other publications.
Getz is listed in the 16th and 17th editions of the Men of Achievement and the 23rd edition of the Dictionary of International Biographies in Cambridge, England.
He has served on various art panels, including serving as a juror for the American Watercolor Society, Western Federation of Watercolor Societies and South Central Regional Exhibition in Nashville.
Getz is the founder of the Boston Mills Artfest and served as its director for 25 years. He also founded the Ohio Watercolor Society and is an honorary member of the West Virginia Watercolor Society.
In 1992, Getz was honored with a 30-year retrospective exhibition of his artwork at the Salem branch of The Butler Institute of American Art.
In 1991 and 1997, he was nominated for the Ohio Governor’s Award for an individual artist.
He was honored as Alumnus of the Year by the Salem High School Alumni Association in 1985, and 10 years later, he was inducted into the Salem Hall of Fame.
Getz and his wife spend the summers conducting art workshops in the United States and Canada.
