Adam and Eve
“Frantic”, aka Ann Roberts Morley (1936-2009), Artist
Oil on Paper
Late 20th/Early 21st Century
Ann Roberts Morley, 1936-2009, known to many as the artist “Frantic”, was born in Pensacola, Florida. From an early age, she began to draw under the tutelage of her mother’s brother, Michael DiLustro, a Pensacola portrait painter and New York opera singer. He gave her a little book called “The Color Wheel” which inspired her to learn the intricacies of color mixing. From that point on, she was always “doodling” or drawing or sometimes painting.
After studying at Florida State University, at the age of 20 she married Lieutenant Richard Morley, a Marine Corps flight student at NAS Pensacola. Together they raised five children, moving from one duty station to the next. When her husband was overseas, Ann and the children would return to Pensacola. Even during these “frantic” years her ideas took shape in painted images on canvas, wood, ceramics and furniture.
Widowed at 48, she knew it was time to begin a career as a working artist. The first place she took her early pieces was to a little gallery in Mobile, Alabama called “Harmonium.” After that, many other galleries wanted her works. Ann produced thousands of pieces over the next 25 years, ranging from small ceramic items and wooden boxes to small and large acrylic paintings on wood, and furniture.
She rose early each day and worked hard on her many paintings and ceramics, and always in solitude. She was extremely private and very humble about her talent. In spite of this, she found a place as an artist whose work was sold to art lovers in all fifty states, Europe and the Middle East – and connected her to many gallery owners and collectors, whose friendships she enjoyed.