Sarah Gutwirth received her BFA and BA degrees in 1978 from a joint program of Reed College and the Pacific Northwest College of Art. In 2017 she was nominated for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Prize for Painting. She has received grants from Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Murray State University and United University Professions at SUNY. She has had 20 one and two person exhibits over the last twenty-nine years and has had work in numerous group shows.
Her work is in several collections, including the People’s Education Press in Beijing. She held three tenure track teaching positions, receiving tenure at two. She is currently Full Professor of Painting Emerita at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She has travelled widely and lived in France. She recently retired to Philadelphia where she was born and raised.