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Owen Gromme’s daughter encouraged
Anne Reinke to
begin painting.
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Artist Francesca Reinke is an
illustrious example of what great things can come from simply a word
or two of encouragement. Although Reinke had drawn as a child, she
believed that her sister was a better artist. So she put away her art
supplies until she met Owen Gromme’s daughter, Ann.
"Ann encouraged me to start
painting," says Reinke. "She sent me books. I’ve been
lucky to have had people in my life who’ve been encouraging."
On Ann’s recommendation, Reinke took
a continuing education class at Brookfield East High School 17 years
ago. And she hasn’t put down her brushes since.
The Waukesha resident is known for her
oils of landscapes and figures. Some of them can be seen at Oconomowoc’s
Griffin Gallery. "I’ve never done watercolor," she says.
"There’s a richness about oils and it’s a very forgiving
medium."
The petite artist, whose ancestors hail
from southern Italy, has garnered a lot of her inspiration from her
travels. She and her late husband, a design engineer for an
Illinois-based firm, traveled the globe as part of his work. Not
surprisingly, she counts Florence as one of her favorite cities.
"I was very fortunate," she
recalls. "My husband had business all over the world. He would go
to meetings and I would be taken around. My very first trip anywhere
was to Japan." Reinke notes that her husband and her four
children were also very supportive of her painting.
Art has been a passion all of Reinke’s
life. In addition to the childhood competition with her sister, she
remembers going on field trips to the Art Institute in Chicago when
she was enrolled in middle and high school in Kenosha. "Art is
wonderful and it’s frustrating and it’s inspiring and every
emotion you can think of," she says. But she admits that art in
the Midwest is very underrated. "Artists don’t get the
attention that they would if they were on the coasts," says
Reinke. "In Europe, people grow up seeing art all around them. In
Europe, artists are respected."
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