Loretta Gail Phelps

Died: May 22, 2026, peacefully in her home in Atascadero, California

Father: Lester Dudley Phelps

Mother: Julia Lorretta Powers

Loretta grew up in Morgan Hill and attended Morgan Hill Elementary School and Live Oak Union High School. During her childhood and teenage years, she nurtured her artistic talent through mail-order courses. She later graduated from Hartnell Junior College and San Jose State University, where she majored in art history.

A lifelong artist, Loretta supported herself as a framer while continuing to paint in a variety of media. Her work earned first-place awards and honorable mentions at the Statewide Art Show and Society of Western Artists exhibitions in Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Palo Alto, California, as well as third place at the Bayfair Art Exhibit in Oakland, California.

Her artwork was exhibited at venues across California, Illinois, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

Her solo exhibitions were held at the Lucian Labaudt Gallery in San Francisco; Stanford University’s Bechtel International Center in Palo Alto; the Burnham House Gallery and Group 21 Gallery in Los Gatos; and The Art Gallery and the San Jose Art Center in San Jose.

While living in San Jose, Loretta worked for many years as a framer at the Phoenix Gallery. She later moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she designed and built a home that included a frame shop converted from the garage. Inspired by early American Indian culture, much of her artwork depicted the surrounding landscape, plants, and animals.

Loretta participated in Bark in the Park in San Jose, where she painted pet portraits and custom scenes in the sizes and colors people requested. Music and films also inspired her work, including a large red, yellow, and orange figure radiating light, titled after the Beatles’ “Sun King.” The movie Finding Nemo inspired her watercolor collage “Mine,” which featured a seagull

claiming it’s catch on a pier.

Her love of trains inspired a 4-by-5-foot canvas of a steam engine charging toward the viewer. Classical music influenced another large painting, which depicted couples waltzing gracefully in a dimly lit grand ballroom.

In 2011, she moved to Atascadero, California, where she spent her final years in a friendly retirement community, continuing to paint and draw until her peaceful passing in her apartment, surrounded by friends she had known since childhood.

Loretta will be remembered by those who loved her for her dry wit, gentle spirit, and deep kindness toward all living things.