Shangri-La Primere Exhibit for Anne Marsden Morse Williams - An Impressionistic Fauvist Journey in Shangri-La Ithaca, NY

Anne Marsden Morse Williams is renowned throughout the US as a master of post-impressionistic fauvist style landscapes, in a style similar the later works of both Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. Marsden is an alumna of Westtown Friends School and Connecticut College and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Marsden's works are featured in the Contemporary Women Artists Files of the Mabel Smith Douglass Library and Douglass College at Rutgers, which have been at the nexus of contemporary women's art since the beginning of the 1970s. Marsden was married for a time to Dr. Stephen Scott Morse, an assistant professor of microbiology at Rutgers University. From 1981 to 1986, she lived and painted in Princeton, NJ, while continuing to visit her native Richmond, VA, and the family's summer home on the cape in Woods Hole, MA.

Marsden Still Life

Marsden is the daughter of John Skelton Williams, Jr., an agent with the Equitable Life Assurance Society in Richmond, and the late Florence Higinbotham Williams. She is a granddaughter of the late John Skelton Williams, who was president of the Seaboard Railway in Richmond and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 1913 and Controller of the Currency under President Woodrow Wilson from 1914 to 1921. Her works will be on exhibit from December 2006 to March 2007 at Shangri-La art gallery at 156 The Commons, Ithaca, NY, USA. Opening reception Friday 1 December 2006 from 5 to 9 PM. This exhibit is sponsored by The United States Presidents Center, a non-profit arts and educations organization.

Les Fauves (Wild Beasts) began as a movement emphasizing painterly qualities and deep color over representational values. Fauvists simplify lines, make the subject easy to read, exaggerate perspectives and use brilliant but arbitrary colors. They also emphasize freshness and spontaneity over finish.