• THE SHORT STORY
Designer, Writer/Editor, Curator, Fine Artist Vanessa Françoise Rothe grew up in the artists colony of Laguna Beach, CA, the daughter to a well known German clothing designer to the Stars, Detlev Rothe, and her French mother Jacqueline Ricaud, a fashion model and French translator. She would come home from school to find Ron Wood or Kenny Loggins in her living room playing guitar with her father, and was soon was painting on silk to make custom jackets for the Rolling Stones with their iconic lips logo. She was constantly surrounded by fine art, fashion, fabrics, books on architecture and music... and was, like many successful creatives, already drawing and designing at a young age. From sewing on coconut shell buttons to vintage Hawaiian shirts in her fathers sewing workshop to learning about vintage rugs, to hand painting silk shirts and jackets, Vanessa was immersed in fine art, home decor and fashion from the start. In high school she developed her own fashion style combining influence from her French mother and fashion from her father. She was taught how to sew by an older seamstress in town as well as the family vietnamese tailor, was soon sewing her own prom dress and later designing her own wedding gown. After gaining important degrees with top honors in business, graphic design and French literature at University of San Diego and UCI, she lived and worked in Europe for 6 years with her husband, working as a graphic designer and traveling to every country, viewing and taking classes on the history of art in museums, learning about architecture, and gaining a world of knowledge and inspiration. She then attended LCAD Laguna College of Art and Design, a fine art school for three years with top honors.
Since 2010, Rothe owns her own successful fine art gallery Vanessa Rothe Fine Art located at 418 Ocean Avenue Laguna Beach California and has served as the West Coast Editor to Fine Art Connoisseur magazine writing and inventing articles for them over 16 years. She is currently writing for American Art Collector magazine and has a monthly column in International Artist Magazine titled Art Industry Insider. She has curated over 40 exhibitions the last 12 years from LA, to New York, to Paris including some of the top international artists in Realism and Impressionism today as well as created the Americans in Paris fine art project. Rothe has also had the honor of showing and selling her own fine art work the last 22 years and is a signature member of the American Impressionist Society as well as a juried artist member of the famed Salmagundi Club NYC. Rothe offers her well curated art collection, ideas, and Interior design world connections, to you to help bring a bit of the the artful life to your home or office thru vanessarothefineart.com
In early 2022 Rothe followed in her fathers footsteps to add the Curated Boutique known as Vanessa Rothe Design as part of the gallery showcasing bespoke fashion and home goods she creates, and curates from all over the globe. VANESSA ROTHE FINE ART + DESIGN is the result of this upbringing and Vanessa's constant desire to create, be it with paint, furniture, rugs, or a rare and beautiful combination of fabrics. We hope to help you join us in living "The Fine Art of Life!" and we thank you for supporting the arts.
Find out more about Vanessa's exciting life story and global art projects, information can be found below in THE LONG STORY.
Designer, Writer/Editor, Curator, Fine Artist Vanessa Françoise Rothe grew up in the artists colony of Laguna Beach, CA, the daughter to a well known German clothing designer to the Stars, Detlev Rothe, and her French mother Jacqueline Ricaud, a fashion model and French translator. She would come home from school to find Ron Wood or Kenny Loggins in her living room playing guitar with her father, and was soon was painting on silk to make custom jackets for the Rolling Stones with their iconic lips logo. She was constantly surrounded by fine art, fashion, fabrics, books on architecture and music... and was, like many successful creatives, already drawing and designing at a young age. From sewing on coconut shell buttons to vintage Hawaiian shirts in her fathers sewing workshop to learning about vintage rugs, to hand painting silk shirts and jackets, Vanessa was immersed in fine art, home decor and fashion from the start. In high school she developed her own fashion style combining influence from her French mother and fashion from her father. She was taught how to sew by an older seamstress in town as well as the family vietnamese tailor, was soon sewing her own prom dress and later designing her own wedding gown. After gaining important degrees with top honors in business, graphic design and French literature at University of San Diego and UCI, she lived and worked in Europe for 6 years with her husband, working as a graphic designer and traveling to every country, viewing and taking classes on the history of art in museums, learning about architecture, and gaining a world of knowledge and inspiration. She then attended LCAD Laguna College of Art and Design, a fine art school for three years with top honors.
Since 2010, Rothe owns her own successful fine art gallery Vanessa Rothe Fine Art located at 418 Ocean Avenue Laguna Beach California and has served as the West Coast Editor to Fine Art Connoisseur magazine writing and inventing articles for them over 16 years. She is currently writing for American Art Collector magazine and has a monthly column in International Artist Magazine titled Art Industry Insider. She has curated over 40 exhibitions the last 12 years from LA, to New York, to Paris including some of the top international artists in Realism and Impressionism today as well as created the Americans in Paris fine art project. Rothe has also had the honor of showing and selling her own fine art work the last 22 years and is a signature member of the American Impressionist Society as well as a juried artist member of the famed Salmagundi Club NYC. Rothe offers her well curated art collection, ideas, and Interior design world connections, to you to help bring a bit of the the artful life to your home or office thru vanessarothefineart.com
In early 2022 Rothe followed in her fathers footsteps to add the Curated Boutique known as Vanessa Rothe Design as part of the gallery showcasing bespoke fashion and home goods she creates, and curates from all over the globe. VANESSA ROTHE FINE ART + DESIGN is the result of this upbringing and Vanessa's constant desire to create, be it with paint, furniture, rugs, or a rare and beautiful combination of fabrics. We hope to help you join us in living "The Fine Art of Life!" and we thank you for supporting the arts.
Find out more about Vanessa's exciting life story and global art projects, information can be found below in THE LONG STORY.
SHOP GIRLS
Gallery Owner, Curator and Clothing Boutique Designer, Vanessa Rothe ( Right with beret hat) shown here with longtime friend and Assistant Gallery/Boutique Director Tiana Wright ( left in Kimono robe).
This dynamic duo have known each other from the early years on the school bus, to working retail together in Laguna's finest boutiques in the 80's and have remained friends for years. Now combining Vanessa's flare for fashion, European taste, knowledge of luxury textiles and marketing experience, combined with Tianas amazing sales skills, styling, photography, and years of retail experience, they create a great team.
• THE LONG STORY ... ROTHE'S ART HISTORY
After winning many youth art competitions and 1st place in the senior art contest at Laguna Beach High School. Rothe received top scholarships for her university studies and honored in both Business/Marketing and French Literature at the University of San Diego and the University of CA, Irvine. She helped design, write, and do illustrations for the yearbooks both in high school and was Art Director for yearbooks in college. With this publications experience and being one of the first proficient designers on the Apple Macintosh computer in the late 80’s, Rothe was whisked away to live six years in Switzlerand working as graphic designer in various advertising and print publication firms, fashion modeling and playing professional volleyball indoors and on the beaches of Italy, Turkey and South Africa. While in Europe she had the chance to visit almost every art museum, tour all the famous cities and towns with their architectural splendor, and learned three new full languages while there.
ART DIRECTOR- GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Later as an art director back in Southern California for Walter Foster Publishing she created over 40 new books for the company working with illustrators at Disney. Rothe then started her own art and design business which she still owns today. With a passion for art, and being the ever over achiever, Rothe desired to furthered her classical fine art studies and was given a merit scholarship to attend the Laguna College of Art and Design receiving top honors throughout. In addition to this fine traditional schooling, Rothe has had the opportunity to when living in Europe for six years, to study at fine art ateliers in France and Italy as well as to work directly with many professional contemporary painters, editors, curators, and writers to build her vast knowledge of the creative world.
EDITOR/WRITER, FINE ART MAGAZINES
For the past 16 years from 2002-2018 Vanessa served as the West Coast Editor of the Nationally acclaimed art collector magazine FINE ART CONNOISSEUR, creating and writing top stories on the representational art world and lecturing at museums and galleries around the world. She helped start PLEIN AIR magazine and created different events for the art world including the gathering of top fine artists at important master artist Museum exhibitions and painting together on the grounds of the Museums directly after viewing the show. Rothe now invents and writes important art history articles for American Fine Art Magazine, has her own monthly column in International Artist Magazine and writes the Contemporary Masters section for American Art Collector magazine. Vanessa was also proud to serve 4 years at the Educational Director of the American Impressionist Society and to have written their main mission statement and American Impressionist history.
THE VRFA GALLERY OWNER + CURATING
Rothe currently owns and operates her art and design business as well as Vanessa Rothe Fine Art Gallery representing some of the top realist and impressionists of the world, both historical and contemporary, located at 418 Ocean Ave in the coastal art community of Laguna Beach California. The gallery collection is a meticulously curated selection of work ranging from new modern combination of realistic figures with abstract backgrounds, to tight realism to loose impressionistic and stunning works. She imports top fine art works from France, Russia, Norway and even Iceland by artists pushing the envelope on realism and abstraction combinations today, as well as carries a fine selection of historical French, California and Russian impressionism.
In addition to running the gallery Rothe is an independent Curator creating exciting theme based exhibitions in New York, Paris and California. She is proud to create and consult on exhibitions and the display of fine art works outside of her own space and brings her own selected fine art collection to various top art venues across the world. Along with curating the fine collection for her gallery, Vanessa has innovated many recent successful exhibitions. Her well trained aesthetic eye for quality art, experience, graphic design, web, catalog and writing skills, creating themed and unique exhibitions at Galleries and Museums throughout the world. Rothe specializes in Realist and Impressionist work, along with Historical masterworks and has recently been known to add drawings and sketches to the exhibits to help portray the raw talent of the artist. Rothe and VRFA Gallery proudly shares in the creation of the current new contemporary realist movement that can be a success with artists combining long learned traditional realism with abstraction and or Impressionism
Rothe has been curating unique high quality exhibitions for such venues as The California Museum of Fine Art, the LA Art Show 2015, and galleries such as Arcadia, Abend, and the Salmagundi Club New York. She is currently working with a Historical Early California Impressionist collection, and adding them to her unique exhibits in order to compare them with contemporary works, and to tie in important fine art history. visit www.vanessarothefineart.com
FINE ARTIST
In addition to her editorial, curatorial and graphic and clothing design work, Vanessa Françoise Rothe is a fine artist exhibiting the last 17 years alongside the Nations top artists in galleries, art clubs, as well as Museums. Early in her art career Rothe was named one of the “Artists for a New Century” at The Bennington Center for the Arts. She then started her career with 3 solo exhibitions at the Wendt Gallery in Laguna Beach who carried many top artists she admired. Rothe is fortunate and proud to have exhibited and sold her works for the last 20 years alongside some of the nations top artists. She is proud to be in solo shows and group shows at numerous top fine art venues across the globe including in Arcadia Contemporary, Richard Schmid Fine Art Auctions, The LA Art Show, The California Museum of Fine Art, the Laguna Art Museum, Galerie Prince de L’Oeil Paris and Biarritz France, the Salmgandi Art Club in New York. She is a Signature Member of the American Impressionist Society, ( where she also served four years as their Educational Director) and was proudly accepted and acknowledged as a juried in Artist Member of the renown Salmagundi Arts Club in New York city. visit www.vanessarothefineart.com
CREATING EXCITING GLOBAL EVENTS
Rothe is proud to be inventing some of the most exciting fine art exhibitions in America such as the Americans in Paris bi continental exhibitions in LA and PARIS may of 2018. The Realism Without Borders exhibit December 2017 with over 60 works from around the globe in realism and impressionism and the exciting September 2019 Fine Art of Fashion exhibit at the Salmagundi Club in NYC where she combined top contemporary fashion designers with oil paintings created and inspired by fashion. Here she presented at lecture in the parlor of the Salamgundi Art Club and a panel with current top designers in the fashion industry discussing their creative process and the overlaps of the process to a fine artist.
FASHION DESIGN
As a child Rothe was taught to sew and paint on silk. Vogue and W magazines were bedtime stories. In high school she made her own clothes prom dress and later designed her own wedding dress. At 26 Rothe began to make her own line of dresses with denim and Kimono pieces. She sold her limited edition and one of a kind creations later in 1999-2002 online as one of the first online shopping experiences as well as a dozen stores around the USA. She and a friend also started a small business creating limited edition hand bags they called "Bagette"©. Today her one of a kind creations, restyled vintage, and bespoke clothing can be found at VRFA at 418 Ocean Avenue, Laguna Beach California and often online here.
MAKING ART HISTORY – An International FINE ART PROJECT
As if this was not enough, Rothe has invented new international art projects to aid in the creating and selling of strong new contemporary art work. Rothe is the founder and leader of the“Americans in Paris” Events, Workshops and Exhibitions. With these AIP events, Rothe had the idea to bring together a dozen top American representational artists from various areas of the USA, to travel to Paris to study the masters, share their influences and their knowledge with one another in order to bring their work to the next level. Rothe had found, thru her time as editor for the fine art magazines, she had a nation wide look at the art world. She concluded after interviewing many artists, that even the top talented realist artists in America and graduates from classical art schools often did not know what they wanted to paint, or were working only in single figure compositions instead of pushing themselves to created group figure scenes. Rothe along with friends invented the Americans in Paris workshops and Exhibitions in order to address this. The group traveled to Paris in 2017 and studied the masters in the Louvre, and D'Orsay The group of artists and writers had lively evening discussions based on specific topics just like creative groups of the past such as the Impressionists and Hemmingway and Fitzgerald's writing groups did in the Paris bistros and bars years before. The Americans in Paris bi continental exhibitions sold out with all of their new works last May 2018 in LA and Paris. Next year in 2020 AIP opens their program up to the public as Rothe lectures and teaches with 4 other artists in a Castle in Provence.
More information can be found on our fine art events page. www.vanessarothefineart.com/events. Our next Americans in Paris trip is May 6-15th, 2020 and spots are open to the public thru our host Workshops in France www.workshopsinfrance.com )
As seen in December 2016 issue of Modern Luxury magazine Orange County
As Seen in Elevated Luxury Life Magazine October 2019- 6 page article on ROTHE's life as curator, artist, writer, designer