“I was born in Manhattan and when I think back on my early years in New York, I feel like I was raised on Times Square, the location of my father’s theatre ticket agency. It was the hub of my early New York experiences. Now, a resident of Maine I continue painting the city from my studio in Portland.

Over the years I have also found inspiring subject matter in the landscapes of Maine and New Mexico as well the steel towns of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Weirton, West Virginia.”

About Bob

Written for the Maine Jewish Museum by his children Benjamin Solotaire, Matthew Solotaire and Lynn Kemna

Our father spent his life dedicated to the art and the practice of painting. It’s hard to think of dad without a paintbrush in his hand, or standing in front of his easel, or without his camera walking down the street looking for new subject matter. But he was also a loving father, a beloved man about town, an avid reader, and clipper, of the news (with strong opinions about what he was reading), a veteran gardener, a music lover, and a voracious traveler. He truly lived a full life, enjoying the world around him and the people he met, and his art reflected that. For every hour he spent in front of the easel he spent many more walking the streets of Portland, New York City, Pittsburgh, Santa Fe, and so many small industrial towns around the country that fascinated him. His subjects were the places people worked and lived, the streets they walked, and the factories and plants that were the backbone of so many of these cities. He also had great respect for the nature that surrounded those buildings and structures capturing the sky, trees, and water with a softness that stands in contrast to the solidness and detail of the human structures.

Dad made every subject he painted feel like he had a personal connection to it. Like he worked or lived there, and he was inviting you in to experience it the way he did. He was an artist who wanted to convey beauty in the everyday world where-ever he found it and to share that experience with you. He was self-taught but he was an exacting teacher filling countless sketch pads with studies and sketches. Reworking a painting over until it was just right. It was uncommon for people to be included in his finished work but he had pages and pages of drawings of bodies and faces. He did dozens of drawings of horses just so he could give one to his daughter of the animal she loves so much.