Gloria Foss

Gloria Foss

As the wife of an Air Force officer, Gloria lived in many parts of the United States and Japan.  While still a relatively new artist, her oil paintings were accepted in three juried shows at the National Museum in Ueno Park, Tokyo.  Subsequently, she became the first foreigner invited to join the prestigious Japanese Shinkaijusha Art Guild, sponsors of the juried shows.

Gloria and her husband Walter lived in Honolulu since his retirement from the Air Force.  She began to teach oil painting classes in 1970 and in the interim has taught well over 1500 adults.  Known for her excellent color sense, Gloria credits her early fascination and knowledge of color with her experience in the Princeton, New Jersey laboratory of her brother-in-law, the renowned color consultant, Carl E. Foss. Years later, while teaching three different classes a week herself, Foss attended the University of Hawaii and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.  Later, she founded the Foss School of Fine Arts in Honolulu and directed it until 1985 when she closed it in order to write and illustrate a book based on her teaching principles.

How to Paint: A Course in the Art of Oil Painting was published by Watson-Guptill Publications in 1991.  This beautiful hard cover book has 245 full color and 180 black and white illustrations, most of which were done by the author.   While the hard cover book is now out of print, it is fortunately available in CD-ROM format from Walt Foss.

The American Artist Book Club featured How to Paint as the Book of the Month when it first came out.   It was especially well received by art students who found it easy to understand, as well as by art teachers, many of whom use it as a text or reference book in their classes.  Although long out of print, Walt Foss still receives inquiries from far-flung strangers about where to find a copy.

Gloria Foss passed away in February of 2005.