FLORENCE.- Out of 800 artists from 80 countries, exhibiting more than 2,500 works, with a career far from over, New Yorker Rosalyn A. Engelman received a “Career Achievement in Art” Award at the 2009 Biennale Internazionale Dell' Arte Contemporanea di Firenze. The award-certificate is accompanied by a gold medal, which bears the portrait of Lorenzo di Medici, Il Magnifico.

The Biennale is under the auspices of the Italian government, with “High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.”

The international exhibition is housed in the Renaissance Fortezza di Basso, built in 1534 by Antonio da Sangallo. Because the fortress reflects the splendor of the Medici family governed, it is the ideal setting for this prestigious event. Fortezza di Basso is the most important exhibition centre in Florence.

This marks Mrs. Engelman’s second successive invitation to the Biennale.

She had three works on display: Fog, Emotion and Bal Harbour Sunset.

In 2005, Charlotta Kotik, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum described Mrs. Engelman as “the painter’s painter.” She adds that one has to admire Engelman’s “expert handling of the basic properties of paint, the juxtaposition of various hues, the manipulation of the physical surface of painting and the artist’s feeling for a composition balance.”

Mrs. Engelman received a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies and Asian Art from the University of Rochester. Continuing, she attended the Art Students League where she painted along side other abstract painters.

Ed McCormack, “Gallery & Studio” magazine wrote about her exhibition “Echo Sonata,” based upon the 17th century painting/calligraphy of Hon’Ami Kõetsu (1558-1637) that “standing before Engelman’s huge canvases, one almost has the feeling of being present at that precise moment in the history of civilization when form morphed into sign and written language was born.”

The 2009 Biennale di Firenze is an extraordinary encounter between different cultures, styles and languages as the “Dialogue among Civilization” program promotes. Since 2001, the Biennale has officially participated in the “Dialogue among Civilization” program.