July 15, 2010

By Rick Winterson

An artist resides in the Powers Apartments, who taught herself to paint.  Over the years, she has created a hidden world of subjects.  She’s Jane Murphy, and to date, she has been largely unrecognized around South Boston.  Her realistic works with their Romantic Era overtones would be a fitting addition to any collection.

  Her apartment is a live-work place.  Unlike most live-work conversions, where a warehouse loft becomes first a studio and next a place to live, she did hers in reverse.  She moved into her apartment, and then turned it into a combined artist’s studio and a dwelling.

  As a result, Jane Murphy’s apartment also became dedicated to her creative work.  She reserves part of her living room for her easel, placing so it catches daylight from the north, through her double windows on the fourth floor of the Msgr. John T. Powers Apartments on L Street.

  Her paintings are everywhere around her apartment, along with several art photos.  In addition to being an accomplished oil painter, Jane also does furniture decorating.  Her chairs and bureaus with groups of people and still lifes on them adorn her quarters.  She lives and works in a gallery of her own making.

  Jane has created an immense body of work.  When asked how many paintings she estimates she has done, she shrugs and says, “Oh, thousands”.  Her subject matter is best described by that word “eclectic”, a word which is overused by art critics, but is exactly true in Jane’s case.

  Portraits, family groupings, religious themes, landscapes, animal pictures, and still lifes are among her subjects.  She works exclusively in oils, using a wide-ranging palette.  Her paintings often contain elements of classical Romantic works, but she does not copy the works themselves.  Her creations are all original with her.

  Jane is entirely self-taught.  The bookcase near her easel is stuffed with manuals on painting.  She often works in an early Romantic Era (late 1700s) style, which features varied colors along with strongly contrasting light and shadow.  Some of her ideas go back to Thomas Gainsborough in the 1700s, but she can render up-to-date subjects as well.  For example, she painted a portrait of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved so many Jews from Hitler’s death camps during World War II.

  Jane Murphy is a South Boston lifer, the daughter of Ed and Mary (Reed) Murphy, who were nurses and met each other at Long Island Hospital.  She had two brothers, Hugh and Ed, one of whom drew cartoons, but that’s the only artistic influence she knows of.  The family lived on O Street and then moved to Swallow, back when rent was $30 a month.  She went to the Nazareth and Bishop Cheverus Schools.

  When you meet Jane, she exhibits a certain confidence and way of using her voice that makes one think “telephone operator”.  Sure enough, she worked for many years as an operator in the old telephone building on Harrison and Essex, and finished her career as a switchboard operator at City Hospital.  The women in that craft were a kind of informal but respected sorority, back when most working women taught, nursed, became secretaries, or joined the convent.

  Along the way, Jane taught herself to paint.  She modestly claims, “Oh, I just dabble”, but when Norm Crump saw one of her paintings, he said, “Where has such talent been hiding this long …?”  Jane enjoys Italian food, so she’s well located to indulge that whim on L near Broadway.  She’s also a history buff – World Wars I and II.

  During this interview, she tried to claim, “You know, I’m kind of dull.”  But the truth is that Jane Murphy has created her own Paradise on earth.

  (EDITOR’S NOTE:  Thanks to Isabelle Paull for the lead on this article.)