Born in Lexington, Georgia in 1945, painter and printmaker Shirley Bolton received her BFA in 1966 and her MFA in 1970 from the University of Georgia. Bolton’s work became consistently more abstract throughout her career. This work is close in date and style to her prize-winning oil and collage of 1969 titled “Tenement”. She exhibited at the High Museum (Atlanta), the National Exhibition of Black Artists (Washington, DC), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), Southern Illinois University, University of Georgia (solo, 1970) and Atlanta University (1964-1970).
She was included in “New Vitality in Art: The Black Woman” exhibition at Mount Holyoke College, and “Black Artists: South” at the Huntsville Museum of Art (1979). She was given a solo show at Spellman College.
Her work is included in the collections of the Carnation Milk Company, Los Angeles, the Clark Atlanta University, and the University of Georgia, Athens. The artist passed away in 1984 in Pensacola, Florida. REF: St James Guide to Black Artists, Black Artists on Art, and Black Artists: South (catalog to the exhibition).
