Charlotte Greene
Artist who worked in a variety of media and was active in Baltimore’s arts community continued painting into her 90s
Charlotte D. deB. “Lottie” Greene, a Baltimore artist who worked in a variety of media and participated in one-woman and juried shows, died of complications from dementia July 23 at North Oaks retirement community in Owings Mills. She was 104. “She was always the lively one, and from my earliest memories she was the one who was always singing and dancing,” said a nephew, Bryan Blundell of Rockville. “The birthday parties she gave for her children were always whimsical.”
The daughter of Dr. Johannes Gregorius Dusser de Barenne, a neurologist, and Kate Snellen Dusser de Barenne, a concert pianist, Charlotte Dusser de Barenne was born in the Netherlands.
Her paternal grandfather, renowned Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen, was the inventor in 1862 of the Snellen Eye Chart, which tests visual acuity.
She moved with her family to New Haven, Conn., in 1930, when her father was offered a professorship in neurophysiology at Yale University. While at Yale, he completed some of the original mapping of the cortex of the brain, family members said.
She graduated from high school while living in the Netherlands and enrolled at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1933.
“She was in the same class as Julia Child,” said Meg Hyman Berman, a daughter who lives in Pikesville.
After graduating from Smith, she studied at the Studio School of Art in Cambridge, Mass., and at Yale.
In 1937, she married Dr. Daniel Crosby Greene Jr., who had graduated from the Yale School of Medicine that year. After they moved to Baltimore, Mrs. Greene continued her studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
She studied with sculptor Franc Epping in Lenox, Mass., and also studied printmaking in Baltimore with John Blair Mitchell and painting with Pat Donovan.
Mrs. Greene focused on oils, and for more than 40 years painted large canvases in the expressionist style. She used the name “Charverte” on her numerous works as a “bilingual anagram for her married name,” wrote her daughter in an email.
In addition to painting, her works included terra cotta sculpture, collage, silk screen works and etchings. She had one-woman shows in Maryland, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, and participated in many juried group shows in Maryland as well as in Paris.
Mrs. Greene’s work can be found in numerous private and some public collections. “She was primarily an abstract painter,” said her daughter.
She served on the boards of the Artists Equity Association, Maryland Art League and the Art Gallery of Fells Point.
She was a longtime active member of Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, where she was originator and coordinator of its Unicorn Gallery.
In 1991, Mrs. Greene and her husband, a retired pediatrician, left their longtime home on Norwood Road in Guilford and moved to North Oaks, where she immersed herself in the life of the retirement community. Her husband died that year.
She continued painting and also took classes, played Scrabble and attended Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performances. In addition to her art, she wrote poetry, plays and enjoyed listening to music and dancing.
“Her only complaint at 95 was that she could no longer dance to the music of ‘ Fiddler on the Roof’ because it made her dizzy and she’d fall over,” Mr. Blundell said.
For many years she enjoyed vacationing at a cabin in Hillsborough, N.H.
“North Oaks had a gallery and she’d hang her paintings,” her daughter said. “She continued painting until she was well into her 90s.” Ms. Berman said that Mrs. Greene’s philosophy of life was that it was good to be a willow, “because a willow can bend and an oak does not.”
Mrs. Greene followed no particular regime to achieve her centenarian status.
“She never smoked and never exercised, but was always on the go. She was a very active person,” her daughter said.
“At cocktail time, she enjoyed an OldFashioned in the winter and a gin and tonic in the summer months, along with cheese and crackers. She also liked wine,” Ms. Berman said. “She loved sweets and cakes — the icing was her favorite part.
“But her motto was ‘ Everything in moderation,’” he daughter said. No services are planned. In addition to Ms. Berman and Mr. Blundell, Mrs. Greene is survived by four other daughters, Rebecca King of Bowie, Elise Drew of Chesapeake Beach, Kate Brodeur of Eliot, Maine, and Emily Levings of Superior, Wis.; a sister, Dr. Marion Kilson of Dublin, N.H.; 12 grandchildren; 22 great-grandchildren; and nine great-greatgrandchildren. Charlotte Greene would say it was good to be a willow “because a willow can bend.”