Rose Frantzen

Rose Frantzen has an established history as a working artist, exhibiting fgurative, representational, and allegorical works in oil and multimedia in galleries across the country, including the Old City Hall Gallery, which she established in her hometown of Maquoketa, Iowa. She has had numerous one woman shows and participated in many group shows in galleries and museums throughout the United States. "Portrait of Maquoketa," a collection of 180 portraits that she painted of her townspeople, was exhibited at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. Te project now includes a panoramic landscape of Maquoketa painted on 34 suspended panels and is part of the Figge Art Museum's permanent collection. Her work is in the permanent collections of the World Food Prize, the Figge Art Museum, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the Dubuque Museum of Art, Iowa State University, University of Iowa, and has been shown at the Butler Institute of American Art, the Brunnier Museum, the Christian Petersen Museum, the Denver Historical Museum, and the Iowa State Historical Museum. She is a three-time winner in the International Portrait Competition of the Portrait Society of America, awarded 5th and 4th place out of 2500+ entries, and received the 2016 and 2018 People's Choice Award. Her portrait commissions include university deans and presidents, governors, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tomas Vilsack.

Frantzen is a frequent demonstrator, workshop instructor, guest lecturer, and panelist discussing art and the artist's life in the 21st century at museums and national art conventions, and her paintings have been featured in national and international art magazines, podcasts, and journals. Her latest project, "In the Face of Illusion," is a 4x70 foot wall of contiguous portraits and fgures that are painted in dialogue with optical illusions.