Spring 2022 Show Judge Announced

Freya Qually
Judge of Awards for the Arts Guild’s Spring Show and Sale

Freya Qually is a native of Gettysburg, where she studied art in her early years with her father, Ingolf Qually, who founded the art department at Gettysburg College. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Gettysburg College, she went on to earn her master of fine arts degree from The American University in Washington, D.C.

In 1989, she established the studio art department at Penn State Mont Alto Campus and retired from that position as Associate Professor of Art in spring 2020. She was the 2005 recipient of the Martha Fisher Award for Excellence in Teaching. She also gives private instruction at her studio near Fairfield.

Freya Qually is an accomplished portrait artist and has done numerous private as well as institutional commissions including some for Gettysburg College, the Springfield, MO Public Library, the Adams County Courthouse, and the Lincoln Room Museum. Each year for two decades, the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College commissioned her to do a portrait of the guest historian who gave the Fortenbaugh Lecture for the annual Remembrance Day celebration, a reproduction of which was then used as the frontispiece for the publication based on the lecture. She has also done numerous animal portraits.

When painting for her own pleasure, Qually does primarily landscapes in oil but also enjoys the occasional animal subject, figure study, or still-life. In the last few years, she has also exhibited her photography. The local area provides many of her subjects, but she is also inspired by her travels across the U.S. and to other countries as well. Preserving the beauty of the local landscape is a high priority for her. She not only captures it in her work, but she has been a dedicated contributor since its inception to the annual art auction to benefit The Land Conservancy of Adams County, which works to preserve the rural character of the county.

Qually has won a number of national and regional art awards and has exhibited extensively in the local area and in Harrisburg as well as in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, and Rehoboth Beach. Her paintings hang in private collections in England, Canada, and Spain as well as Las Vegas, Berkeley, and throughout the east coast.