Betty Pitts Foster

Betty Pitts Foster earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1962 from the University of Buffalo, and continued at SUNY Buffalo, receiving a Master of Education with a major in Employment Counseling in 1969. She was a volunteer oil painting instructor at the Langston Hughes Art Center in the 1970s. Since 1996, she has been an elementary education art teacher for the Buffalo Board of Education; a librarian trainee at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library; employment counselor for the NYS Employment Service, and vocational rehabilitation counselor for the NYS Department of Education, in addition to pursuing her art.

For Buffalo Arts Studio resident Betty Pitts Foster, her artwork and religious beliefs are inextricably entwined. She says that “she is fulfilling her desire to express the triumphs of the joy of living and celebrating what God has created.” 

A member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, she won awards in some of their exhibitions, as well as shows held by the Williamsville Art Society, Chautauqua Art Association, Niagara Arts & Cultural Center, and WNY Artists Group, among other regional museums and galleries. Her work was selected by renown artists Ernest Chrichlow and Romare Bearden to be exhibited at the Gallery Museum, Hall of Springs, Saratoga Performing Arts Center; and Buffalo-born Haitian Ambassador James B. Foley selected her work to include in the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies program. (Chrichlow’s social realist work resonates in Pitts Foster’s own approach to painting.)

Betty Pitts Foster paints abstract landscapes filled with color and light, and populated scenes ripe with meaning, made evocative through her gestural style. Some portray everyday life, such as Crossing Elmwood or Bicycle Rider. Others focus on social justice, such as Protest and He’s Gone.

To see more, visit her website, “Glory to God Art Productions” https://bjpfoster.portfoliobox.net/.