Lorraine Geiger
Lorraine Geiger was a painter, fashion designer, and illustrator who was passionate about the visual arts. She painted in an array of mediums, and her work has been exhibited in New York City, the Hamptons, and Chapel Hill. Her earliest artistic memories were of drawing paper dolls and designing wardrobes for them. In her late teens she pursued that interest by attending the New York School of Fine Arts and Applied Design and Parson's School of Design. In the late forties she married Albert Geiger, a custom milliner who was to become a leading designer of women’s clothes.
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Lorraine worked with her husband on design and publicity. She was also involved with her husband's freelance design projects which took them to Europe, especially Paris, Rome, and London. She loved Paris and returned as often as possible. During this period she was inspired to do quick sketches in her notebook of people on the streets who were outrageously dressed in one way or another. Over the years this led to her documenting those modes of dress in the US and abroad from the seventies until the present, by developing her rough sketches into finished illustrations.
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Near the end of the eighties Lorraine and Bert retired from fashion and moved to East Hampton, NY, where Lorraine pursued her artistic endeavors, and painted at the Art Barge in Napeague. They customarily traveled to San Miguel de Allende, a well known artist colony for the winter, and Lorraine painted there at the Instituto Allende and at private studios.
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In 1993 the Geigers moved to Chapel Hill. She studied figure drawing at UNC and also at the Art Center in Carrboro and continued to work on her illustrations up until her death.
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She was also passionate and outspoken about social issues, and led a legal battle in New York City over the reversal of Andrew Carnegie's wishes that Carnegie Hall remain a place for artists to live and work. She was a great inspiration to her children and grandchildren, and to all her family and friends. Her creativity, her strength, and her sense of humor strongly influenced their lives.
