Sylvia Arnstein

Sylvia Arnstein is an artist, an illustrator, a teacher, a gourmet chef, a designer, a consultant, and an entrepreneur. But she has always been, as she herself will tell you, a painter first and foremost.

"My family knew I was a scribbler at a very age when I made a drawing on the wallpaper - and signed it," she says, with her trademark ebullient laugh.

Determined to enhance her natural affinities with rigorous technical training, Sylvia pursued her craft with an education at the finest institutions, studying at the Sir John Cass College of Art in London and at the University of Illinois, which awarded her a B.F.A. She followed that with an MFA at Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, NY. Immediately thereafter, she taught at Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Sylvia spent the next few years honing her craft in New York City, the Central Coast of California, Seattle, and Scotland before settling in Chicago. Her work has been shown across the United States and at galleries in Scotland, and her paintings are housed in private collections throughout North America, continental Europe, and Great Britain.

Sylvia's encompassing sense of color and space and her intuitive relationships with patrons of her artwork continually presented new opportunities. Individual paintings led to murals. Clients seeking commissioned art for residential and commercial areas began asking for more complex and comprehensive advice about overall design and space. In due course, therefore, Sylvia added residential and commercial interior design consulting to her artistic activities. Her company, 4Dimensions, was born.

Sylvia's home base remains in Chicago, where she maintains a studio and a business office. There she not only paints but advises residential and commercial design clients throughout the United States. Such clients include private residences, children's play centers, restaurants, and corporate offices.

As her clients will attest, Sylvia Arnstein offers that rarest of combinations among artists--a natural flair for the dramatic and a shrewd pragmatic sensibility.