Jan Serr

In 2016, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Peck School of the Arts, named a new sixth floor multipurpose space the Jan Serr Studio. Construction began 2017, with a Grand Opening September 28, 2019, which featured the world premiere of Kamran Ince's "A Grand American Celebration" performed by the UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. John Climer.

In 2014 she taught a course on monotype printing at Penland School of Crafts in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

Representational figures and self-portraits are a substantial part of Serr’s work, explored through painting, drawing, and print mediums. About Face was a solo, forty-year survey of self-portraits and figurative work shown at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts in 2011. Summer Dances, exhibited by the Museum of Wisconsin Art in 2014, is a recent series representing dancers in motion.

In 2010 Serr was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award in the Field of Art and Design by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Alumni Association.

A solo exhibition, Jan Serr: Twenty-Year Retrospective: Landscape & Figurative Paintings, was held at the Rahr West Art Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1985.

In 1972 Serr moved to Toronto, Ontario, and began exhibiting with Marlborough Godard Gallery in Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary. In 1976 her first solo exhibition was held in the Montreal gallery.

Serr received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UWM in 1964 and went on to complete her studies in the university’s MFA program. She held her thesis exhibition in 1968 and was awarded her master's degree that year. In 1969 Serr taught painting, drawing, and design at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and in 1970 moved to Acton, Ontario, where she taught painting and drawing at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Oakville, Ontario.

Serr studied at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music during the 1950s and later enrolled at Carroll University as a music major. She decided to explore other areas of study and transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) where she studied with Schomer Lichtner, John Colt, Lawrence Rathsack and Fred Berman. Early influences include the West Coast Figurative painters such as Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, and Wayne Thiebaud, as well as mid-century European artists, most importantly Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, and Emil Nolde.

Jan Serr (born 1943) is an American visual artist who produces a wide range of art including oil paintings, drawings, photographs and prints such as monotypes, lithographs, and etchings.