Biography

Atara Grenadir MFA, ATR-BC is Chair of the Art Department at Touro College. She has an MFA and a BFA from Oklahoma University, and she has also studied art at Carnegie Mellon and art therapy at The New School. Besides teaching at Touro, Atara is an exhibiting abstract painter and a registered and board-certified art therapist.  She has published a cookbook called The Fine Art of Cooking with Simplicity and Joy presenting healthy recipes illustrated with her original paintings and drawings.

Atara’s paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the U.S.  She has exhibited in New York in group and solo shows at the Artsforum and New Art Center galleries and NYATA exhibitions for over ten years. Her paintings were exhibited in the NYCArt Expo in 2011. Out of state, she has exhibited at Dart Industries, Los Angeles, the Milaam Gallery in Houston, the Adams-Middleton Gallery in Dallas and at an invitational at the State Capitol, Oklahoma City. In 2015, she was invited to show at the Goddard Art Center in Ardmore, OK in an exhibit of art by contemporary women artists. Her paintings are in the Oklahoma U. museum and many private collections nationwide.

Atara has been teaching at Touro College for 26 years, during which time she developed the art program that offers the Visual Arts minor and a minor in Art Therapy. She coordinates the Art Club and curates the student art galleries at LAS Flatbush in the second-floor student lounge and the lobby. Many of her paintings can be seen on her website. 

Education

• B.F.A., M.F.A., University of Oklahoma
• Summer Program: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA