Artist subject of talk Friday

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » German-American artist Jan Balet (1913-2009) will be the subject of a 6 p.m. talk on Friday, Sept. 21 at Northshire Bookstore, 424 Broadway.

Attendees will learn about this accomplished artist’s life from his escaping Hitler’s army, through his days as a highly successful commercial artist, art director, and children’s book author and illustrator in New York City, to his later years as a fine artist residing in Europe.

The book “Jan Balet: Living Art” is a tribute to the artist, who was renowned as a mid-century New York art director and graphic designer and throughout Europe as a fine artist and lithographer. A true Renaissance man, Balet imbued all of his works with a unique style of painting that captured the humor and incongruity of the human circumstance.

Essayists for the new publication include former gallery director and professor emeritus of SUNY Adirondack Dr. Sheldon Hurst, Professor Norman Taber of SUNY Plattsburgh, and Professor Di Kivi of SUNY Adirondack. Each of the essays speak to a different aspect of the artist’s life and art.

Included are an overview of his life and work by Dr. Hurst, a look at Balet’s years as an award-winning graphic artist and art director in New York City by Professor Taber, and a piece on the artist as a children’s book author and il-

lustrator by Professor Kivi.

The full-color, soft cover book also contains more than 70 examples of Balet’s watercolors, paintings, lithographs, and midcentury commercial art, a news release said.

Peter Balet of Saratoga Springs, the artist’s only child, said, “When my father was living he would publish a book about his art or his life every five years. Since 2018 would mark his 105th birthday, my wife Marie and I decided that it would only be fitting to publish a new book for the anniversary of his birth.”

An exhibition of the artist’s watercolors and lithographs is currently on display at in the Visual Arts Gallery at SUNY Adirondack, Dearlove Hall, in Queensbury, and runs through Thursday, Nov. 8.

Titled “What Was He Thinking? Jan Balet: Watercolors and Lithographs,” the exhibition highlights Jan Balet’s masterful lithography and features the artist’s humorous and personal perceptions of human relationships and situations. It also includes several large paintings and many miniature watercolors.

For more information go to: janbalet.com. or northshire.com/event/mariebalet