Barbara Stein trained at the Art Students League in New York under German expressionist artist George Grosz, whose work influenced social realists such as Ben Shahn and William Gropper. In Silver City, she is remembered as the artist who created the iconic poster for the town’s short-lived Silver City Free School.
In a memoir, Ralph Stein wrote that when he lived in New York City in the early 1950s, "he spent time at an artists’ hangout, the Waldorf Cafeteria in Greenwich Village, where he met Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He was drawn to Pollock’s abstract style." After having a stroke in 1962 at the age of 33, Ralph moved with his wife, artist Barbara Stein, and their children "to Silver City, seeking a quiet, remote location to help his recovery and to allow him to pursue his passion - painting in Pollock’s abstract expressionist style."
“He was really an expressionist, and he believed he was painting from his subconscious,” said his son, Thomas.
Ralph wrote that "he helped create an artisan cooperative [the Craft Guild in nearby Mound House] before eventually moving back to Sausalito, CA where he built his own house boat. In his final two years,he lived at Walnut Place in Point Reyes Station, CA.
While living in the Bay Area he continued to paint and was also involved in activism against war and the death penalty.
“He was an eighty-five year old hippie radical,” said friend Paul Worsch, who also lives at Walnut Place, "and even had a colorfully painted van. It was kind of psychedelic looking,” he added.
Stein, who was born in Milwaukee in 1928, passed away in Feb of 2014. In his honor, a group of friends organized an exhibition of his paintings at the Dance Palace Cultural Center at Point Reyes Station, California in 2014.
About Frances Melhop: Frances Melhop is a visual artist, curator and gallery director, born in New Zealand, now living in the U.S. at Lake Tahoe. She has worked globally in the fashion industry as a photographer, constructing imagery; conceptualizing, shooting, and directing stories for publications such as Vogue Italy editions, Vogue Australia, Elle Portugal, and Marie Claire Italy. In 2009, Luerzer's Archive named Melhop one of The World’s 200 Best Advertising Photographers for the images she created for the campaign of Descamps, France. In 2014 she was awarded the NNDA Comstock Innovator of the Year Award for her arts and community work at St Mary’s Art Center, in Virginia City. Melhop’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions worldwide. She works in photography, stitching, printmaking, installation and oil paint, exploring the tensions between the virtual and physical ways we experience the world. PHOTO BY FRANCES MELHOP of the Stein's A-frame in Silver City titled, "Triangle." 
About Silver City, Nevada and its unusual homes and buildings: Since the 1960s, Silver City denizens have rehabed, restored, and rebuilt most of the town's historic buildings, turning them into architecturally unique residences. Today the town is a checkerboard of historic buildings and energy efficient homes on hillsides. Silver City is located within one of the nation's largest federally designated historic landmarks, a few miles from Virginia City, and 30 miles from Reno and from Lake Tahoe. Although today Silver City is often mischaracterized as a ghost town, it's actually a thriving little village with a rich tradition of public music and art events, as well as activities for locals. Home to an unusual number of well-known artists, musicians, writers and academics, Silver City's historic buildings and sites attract plein air painters and photographers from both near and far.
Essay information about Ralph Stein adapted from David Mitchell’s August 10th, 2014 post on his Sparsely Sage and Timely blog, and from a post by Samantha Kimmey in the Point Reyes Light newspaper called “Stein paintings at Dance Palace.”
http://www.sparselysageandtimely.com/blog/?p=25251
https://www.ptreyeslight.com/article/stein-paintings-dance-palace
Biographical information about Barbara Stein from recollections of UNR art Professor Emeritus Jim McCormick.
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