Untitled Document
Click here to view all 12 panels together

George H. Rothacker

 
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I was born in Olean, N.Y on July 2, 1947. My mother and father lived in a refurbished cabin in the mountains of Port Allegheny, PA. My Father was a director of oil fields and my mother had been educated and worked as a fashion artist.

When the oil fields dried up, my parents moved to the Philadelphia area. My family and I moved around a lot in those early years, and finally settled in Delaware County where I have spent most of my life.

As a child I loved art, mechanical toys, trains and erector sets. My mother stressed throughout my childhood that I should never become an artist because “artists can never make a living.” Therefore, as I approached the end of high school, I settled on a career in engineering.

The day I signed up for Mechanical Engineering Technology at Temple, I knew I had chosen the wrong field. But I finished the program and worked as a mechanical designer and draftsman for 3-1/2 years. I worked my way into technical illustration, took some courses at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), and found a job as an artist at a marketing firm. After four years as an Art Director, I was promoted to Creative Director, moved on to a job at an advertising firm, and then formed my own design business in 1978.

 

 

Since 1968, I have illustrated and painted. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s I was fascinated with the surrealists. By the mid-70s, after years as a draftsman, I produced a large body of pen and ink drawings combining fantasy with historical themes. Large canvases with bold colors followed in the late-70s and ’80s.

Then in 1991, I painted the Media Theater and produced signed reproductions as part of a community fundraiser to help keep the theater open. The County Theater in Doylestown was next, and seven other theaters followed throughout the nineties (click here to view theatre paintings).

In 2000, I turned to creating small paintings of buildings and landscapes from life when on vacation and on weekends. Over the past several years, I have created nearly 150 paintings of the homes of my area, vacation spots, and the change of the light in various seasons. These paintings verge on impressionism, and have provided me with a freedom of expression that I have longed for my whole life.

In 2002, I was asked to paint the Indiana Theater in Indiana, Pennsylvania and sell prints as a fund raising effort for the Jimmy Stewart Museum. The painting features on its marquee the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

Since 2005 I have held 10 one-person shows and painted more than 300 paintings. Exhibitions have included (click below for more info):

"Paintings of Radnor" - Radnor Scholarship Fund -2005

"Memories of the Open Road: Lost and Found - Newman & Saunders Galleries - 2006

"The Seasons of Eastern University" Eastern University - 2007

"Connections: From the Inner City to the Outer Main Line" - Radnor Scholarship Fund - 2009

"Preserving the Heart & Soul of America" - Shipley School - 2010

"Havana 59" - Eastern University - 2011

"Havana 59" - Community Arts Center, Wallingford - 2012

"Man at the Crossroads Preview" - Newman & Saunders Gallery - 2012

"New York in the 1930s" - The Highpoint - 2013

"New York in the 1930s" - Community Arts Center, Wallingford - 2013