June Felter (1919–2019) was a distinguished painter born and based in Oakland, California, and deeply embedded in the Bay Area Figurative movement.

Her works are held in numerous prestigious collections, including SFMOMA, the National Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Oakland Museum of California. Felter’s work has been shown widely, both in the U.S. and abroad in Tokyo, Vienna, Copenhagen and France, and was reviewed in some of Artforum’s earliest issues (1963-4).

June’s daughter, photographer and filmmaker Susan Felter, made a 30 minute documentary just a few years before June passed away when she was very much “still at it.” Below the video you’ll find a brief biography spanning Felter’s eight decade career and nearly 100 years of life. If you have questions, or are interested in purchasing Felter’s work, you can reach out to the Felter Family Collection.

June Felter (1919-2019)

Just three years after June was born her parents died tragically. She was taken in by friends – an older couple who died by the time she was 8, and then a younger couple and their daughter, with whom June lived until she married. When she was 18, June pursued formal artistic training at the Oakland Art Institute. From 1937 to 1942, she was a commercial illustrator for fashion publications and war bond advertisements.

In 1943 June married Richard Felter, and together they raised two children, Susan and Tom. In the 1950s she transitioned away from commercial illustration to fully embrace fine art. Inspired by the Bay Area Figurative movement, which merged realism with elements of abstraction, Felter decided to expand her education at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) from 1954 to 1958, and later at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1960 to 1961. During this transformative period she was heavily influenced by the paintings of David Park, and her instructors at SFAI: Richard Diebenkorn, Fred Martin and Elmer Bischoff. 

By the 1970s several of these painters had become her colleagues, and Felter had developed her own lyrical figurative approach. In her landscapes, nudes and complex still-lifes, her work was admired for its graceful spontaneity and she was rewarded with gallery shows and recognition for the next 40 years.

Felter was known for her long-standing Tuesday Drawing Group, which she co-established with Jack Schnitzius, as a space for artists to come together, draw from live models and still-lifes, and share their work. This group, which began in the 1960s and continued for four decades, continued a long tradition of Bay Area figurative artists coming together in this way. Most notably, were the Wednesday figure drawing sessions initiated in 1953 by David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Frank Lobdell and Richard Diebenkorn. 

In 1991, when Felter was 72 and preparing for a possible retrospective, the devastating Oakland Firestorm destroyed her home and studio, claiming hundreds of early works. She photographed the fire while madly collecting artwork, family photos, and her husband's 8mm films, before escaping in a friend's small car. Felter later captured her experience in a series of paintings that used gestural brushwork to convey the chaotic beauty of the fire. This tragedy left the public with just a select few of her early Bay Area Figurative paintings – many of the images on this website are reproductions. Fortunately, Felter continued painting for over two decades, and we are left with a robust body of late career work born from that lineage: landscapes including a special focus on beaches & pools, intimate still lifes, figures, portraits, and abstract compositions, in both acrylic and watercolor. 

Felter was committed to education throughout her career, and was a beloved teacher at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from 1965-1978. She recalled: “One time Wayne Thiebaud signed up for the class. I couldn't believe it. I said, ‘Look, you don't have to do anything that I'm telling these people to do!’ So he said, “okay”, and then promptly did every single thing I suggested.”

June Felter passed away in 2019 at the age of 99. Just after her death, the exhibition, "June Felter: Her Life & Art," at 871 Fine Arts in San Francisco showcased works spanning six decades. 

This biography was compiled from existing writing about June Felter from interviews with the artist, the Point Richmond Gallery, and Lost Art Salon, both of which have Felter’s works available for purchase.