Naomie Kremer (; born January 31, 1953) is an Israeli-born American artist living and working in

Berkeley, CA Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and ...

, and

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Kremer works in paint, video, photography, digital projection, and stage design.

Early life and education

Kremer is one of two children, born in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, to Yitzhak and Dora Tarshish. When Kremer was 8 years old, her family immigrated to

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York (NY), from Israel. Kremer began drawing at the age of 10 and later took classes at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

life drawing A figure drawing is a drawing of the human form in any of its various shapes and Human positions, postures, using any of the drawing Drawing#Media, media. The term can also refer to the act of producing such a drawing. The degree of representatio ...

. After high school Kremer attended the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

, NY and minored in Art. In 1973, Kremer met her husband, Charles Kremer, in India and they moved to London, England. Kremer went to

Sussex University The University of Sussex is a public research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the South Downs National Park, and provide ...

in Brighton where she earned a master's degree in Art History, specializing in Modern and Contemporary art, with a thesis on

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

. In 1977, Kremer and her husband moved to the United States and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kremer worked as a graphic designer until 1989. In 1991, Kremer went back to school for a master's degree in Painting and Drawing at

California College of the Arts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in ...

(CCA). After completing her second master's degree, Kremer began teaching painting and drawing at CCA and the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

and working as a full-time professional artist.

Artistic career

Kremer is known for paintings that incorporate video and digital projection, and her work in set design for the performing arts. In 2008, she was commissioned by Berkeley Opera to create a video-based set for

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

’s ''

Bluebeard’s Castle ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' (, literally ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act Symbolist opera by composer Béla Bartók to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Based on the French folk legend, or ''conte populair ...

''. In 2011, she collaborated with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company to create a video-based set for the performance ''Light Moves'', which premiered at

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary Contemporary art, contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that cel ...

and was subsequently performed at the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

and the Dance Center at Columbia College in Chicago. In 2012, Kremer was commissioned to create a video-based set design for the world premiere opera based on ''The Secret Garden'', co-commissioned by

San Francisco Opera The San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 wh ...

and Cal Performances, with music by

Nolan Gasser Nolan Ira Gasser (born November 10, 1964) is an American composer, pianist, and musicologist. He was the chief musicologist for Pandora Media, Inc. and the architect of the Music Genome Project, the proprietary musical analysis system that und ...

and libretto by

Carey Harrison Carey Harrison (19 February 1944 – 22 January 2025) was an English novelist and dramatist. Early years and education Harrison was born in London to actor Rex Harrison and actress Lilli Palmer, and raised in Los Angeles and New York, where ...

. In 2016, she was commissioned to create a video-based set for Alcina, by GF Handel, performed in the Crusader’s Courtyard in Acre, Israel, by French baroque orchestra

Les Talens Lyriques The French musical ensemble Les Talens Lyriques was created in 1991 in Paris, France, by the harpsichordist and orchestral conductor Christophe Rousset. This instrumental and vocal formation derives its name from the subtitle of '' Les fêtes d'H ...

. In 2017, she created a video set for

Lucia Berlin Lucia Brown Berlin (November 12, 1936 – November 12, 2004) was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years aft ...

: Stories—Five stories from Berlin’s posthumous publication ''A Manual for Cleaning Women'', directed by Nancy Shelby and JoAnne Winter with an original jazz score by

Marcus Shelby Marcus Shelby (born February 2, 1966, in Anchorage, Alaska)Jones, Kenneth"Marcus Shelby Keeps Jazz Orchestra Rolling". MTV, December 21, 2000. is an American bass player, composer and educator best known for his major works for jazz orchestra, '' ...

. It was performed by Word for Word at Z Below, San Francisco, Theatre de la Tour Eiffel, Paris, and theaters in Nancy and Angers, France. In 2018, she was commissioned by the Claude Heater Foundation to design a video backdrop for

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

’s

Tristan and Isolde Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic, the tale is a tragedy about ...

, premiering at the Herbst Theater in SF, and subsequently performed in Luslawice, Poland, at the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music. In 2019, Kremer was commissioned by the Paul Dresher Ensemble to create a video backdrop for Dresher/Davel Duo world premiere of 342. Kremer’s work has been exhibited in institutions and galleries including the Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art,

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

, Contemporary Jewish Museum, SF, Magnes Museum in Berkeley, CA,

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, SFMOMA Artist Gallery, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and

. Her work resides in corporate and museum collections including the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. FAMSF's combined attendance was 1,1 ...

, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, UCLA,

SFMOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

, Tang Museum, the

, and

Arkansas Art Center The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA), formerly known as the Arkansas Arts Center, is an art museum located in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas. The museum's most recent expansion and renovation was designed by architecture and urban des ...

, Little Rock, AR. Art Critic Kenneth Baker has said of Kremer's work: “Naomie Kremer’s improvisational works depend on elusive, harmonious relations among painterly details, the tempo of brushwork, and the dimensions of a canvas.” In a review about Kremer's show Age of Entanglement at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, art critic David Roth said: “Populated by layers of colliding shapes, colors and gestures, they pushed the non-objective impulse to its outer limits, harnessing what felt like primordial forces.” Kremer works as a professional artist out of her studio in Oakland, CA and shows internationally. She is represented by Modernism, Inc. in San Francisco, and Von Fraunberg Gallery in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, Germany.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kremer, Naomie 1953 births Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century Israeli women artists 21st-century Israeli women artists American women academics Alumni of the University of Sussex Artists from Tel Aviv California College of the Arts alumni California College of the Arts faculty San Francisco Art Institute faculty University of Rochester alumni