Janice Provisor

(b. 1946)

Janice Provisor was born in Brooklyn, New York but grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her mother was interested in interior design and filled the family home with Mid-Century Modern furnishings. Her father, an attorney and CPA, took her on his frequent business trips to New York where his sisters introduced her to art museums. Provisor began painting as a young girl. She studied art at the University of Michigan for a time before eventually returning to Ohio to study Design, Art & Architecture. She earned her BFA (1968) and MFA (1971) from the San Francisco Art Institute.

After college, Provisor taught art at several institutions, including the University of Texas in Austin where she was the only female art professor. She exhibited in galleries and museums in San Francisco, Cincinnati and Texas, including a 1977 exhibition at what was then called the Beaumont Art Museum in the “Third Biennial Exhibition of Texas Artists.” She joined the renowned Holly Solomon Gallery in New York in 1978.

Though Provisor is primarily known for her semi-abstract paintings, she is also an accomplished printmaker. In the late 80s, she was invited by Crown Point Press to go to China to create a set of prints in the traditional Chinese woodblock style. Provisor was so enamored with the country that she returned in 1993 with her husband and son. They stayed 9 years, eventually founding a company that made hand-knotted silk carpets based on their designs. Provisor also started an eponymous jewelry business there. She currently lives in Connecticut and continues to paint.

Provisor’s art may be seen in the permanent collections of museums such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Minneapolis Institute of Art; and the New Orleans Museum of Art.