97-year-Old UWS Artist To Display Paintings At Local Festival

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — 97-year-old Henrietta Mantooth is an Upper West Side artist presenting her work at a neighborhood festival later this month.

She was born in 1925, the same year that Benito Mussolini declared he was taking over Italy, or as Calvin Coolidge was in the midst of his first term as President of the United States, or four years before the stock market crash of 1929.

Fast forward nearly a century later, Mantooth is presenting her work on Feb. 16 at the Gold Standard Arts Festival Kick-Off Party at the Goddard Riverside Bernie Wohl Center at 647 Columbus Avenue (West 93rd Street).

"Painting is about bravery. For both artist and viewer,” Mantooth said in a press release about the event. The 97-year-old describes her work as "witnessing" since it generally focuses on those "who are usually nameless — refugees, rebels, the incarcerated, farmers, men and women who tend and defend their land, homes, children, animals and ideas."

Over her career, she's had her work shown at institutions such as the Sao Paulo Biennial and the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil to the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York City.

The Gold Standard Arts Festival is promoted as the only multi-disciplinary arts festival in the United States to celebrate the artwork of older adults.

“We see this festival as a great way to nurture, showcase and celebrate a demographic that has been largely ignored in the arts,” said Eileen Katz, one of the festival's creators, in a news release. “We are living in a great time of inclusion and diversity, and we want to add this demographic to the dialogue.”

You can buy tickets to the Upper West Side festival here.