With over 20 years of professional experience, San Francisco mural artist Lynne Rutter is widely recognized as an expert decorative painter, colorist, and fine art muralist. For inspiration, Lynne draws on her extensive world travels; the work of master artists such as Vermeer, Fra Angelico, Max Beckmann, Veuve Clicquot, and Vivienne Westwood; and the patterns and textures of everything beautiful she encounters.

Lynne grew up in Newport Beach, California, and studied architecture and design at the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with a BA in fine art. To further her education, she began traveling in Europe at the age of 16 to study art history; or to visit her pen pal in Rome; taking every opportunity to travel whenever and wherever she could.

In the mid 1980’s Lynne began working as a scenic artist, and received additional training in the field by apprenticing with several faux finishers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way she has worked as a florist, as a manager of a swank nightclub, and even as a street performer. She found her dream job as a painter for a prominent mural business known for its trompe l’oeil murals. For four years she managed their studios, coordinating production of large scale commercial work for national and international installations.

In 1990, she founded her own boutique altelier, “Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting” with a mission to create “custom, fine art murals, and super-fussy ornament, the kind you have to do by hand, and that you want to look at up-close.” The studio offers mural work including trompe l’oeil, masterful cloudscapes, chinoiserie, polychrome and architectural ornament, faux and decorative finishes, and gilding.

“A room without a painted ceiling is like a world without a sky” ----- Larry Boyce 1946- 2002

Lynne’s interest in period design led her to work on a large number of historic buildings. She has participated in the restoration of the painted ornament in churches and civic buildings, as well a number of Victorians and period revival homes. In newer homes, adorning a previously barren space with historic-inspired ornament has become one of Lynne Rutter’s signature looks.

In recent years her work has included more color consulting and interior design, and she has been featured as a designer in three of the last six San Francisco Decorator Showcase House events.

Meanwhile, Lynne’s larger-than-life figurative paintings have led to commissions for portraits, and what she calls “big giant heads” - surreal-scale paintings that pay homage to the works of old masters. A recent public art commission in San Francisco, entitled Here/Not Here, featured her self-portrait, and reflected on the loss of a friend to AIDS.

Lynne lives in San Francisco in an 1870 Italianate cottage on Potrero Hill. Her mural studio is in a converted cannery in the historic Dogpatch district where she occasionally teaches workshops on decorative painting technique. In her studio, there is always a little something bubbly in the fridge - just in case.

Lynne Rutter is a member of Artistic License, a Bay Area guild of period revival artisans, and has recently joined the team of the Decorative Painting Apprentice Program more information about Lynne’s work at www.lynnerutter.com and at www.artisticlicense.org