Janice Mae Dolan

Jan Dolan, 86, American Impressionist Painter

Janice Mae Dolan (born January 12, 1939, in Peterborough, NH) passed peacefully on Dec. 24, 2025, of complications from a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Jan was predeceased by her parents, William and Edna (LaFlamme) Dolan of Peterborough; also by her husband, Edgar Taylor Morris II (1923-2017) of New Orleans, LA; and by her children’s father, James Wozmak (1938-1986) of Jaffrey, NH.

Jan grew up in Peterborough, graduating from the Peterborough High School Class of 1956. She was a formidable forward for the PHS basketball team, and a star back-stroker on the Peterborough Swim Team. She was active in music and art, winning scholarships toward her attendance at UNH.

During her college years she met Jim Wozmak and the two were married in 1959. Jim was a 1st Lieutenant in the Air Force, and the two were located to several areas of the US while growing their family with three children, Michael, David, and Lisa. During these years Jan continued to practice her art, beginning to develop her signature style. After divorcing in 1971, Janice and the children came back to Peterborough.

With her classic tenacity, Jan was determined to be a professional painter. She made her apartment bedroom into an art studio and worked daily on still lifes and plein air painting. Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s she was often seen along regional byways painting rivers, marshes, lakes, fields, and of course Monadnock. She applied to study with Robert Douglas Hunter, a student of the “Boston School,” and was summarily rejected because he felt she and her “situation” (single mom, three kids) were not serious enough for his practice. He was very wrong. At that moment, she determined to surpass him and everyone who said she couldn’t succeed. Regional artist Sidney Willis was at the time studying with Hunter, so she began to apprentice with him, learning the techniques and traditions of the French Academy and the Boston School. Willis also sparked her entry into portraiture, which became her specialty.

Dolan is the only Peterborough native to receive a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony, also receiving fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA; and the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Brandenburg, Germany. She was an elected member of the Copley Society, Boston, MA an associate member of Allied Artists of America, and a member of the National Society of Women in the Arts, Washington DC.

Her accolades include awards from the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club at the National Arts Club in New York, Bellas Artes in Guadalajara, Best in Show at The Guild of Boston Artists, the Ruth & James Ewing Arts Award in Keene, NH, and magazine features in The Artists’ Magazine and Southwest Art. Her paintings hang in private collections, nationally and internationally, and have exhibited in museums and galleries in New York, Boston, Nantucket, New Orleans, Guadlajara, Fisher’s Island, RI, NM, and many more. One of Dolan’s larger works, an impressionist marshscape, graces the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services in Concord, NH.

She also taught painting and portraiture at Franklin Pierce University and the Sharon Arts Center, and has led private classes for groups and individuals. Specializing in portraiture, Jan’s paintings adorn the walls of many families and corporate clients throughout New England and beyond.

Jan met her husband Taylor Morris, Franklin Pierce University Professor and writer, in the early ‘70s, and the pair traveled extensively throughout the United States as well as Mexico, the UK, Europe and the Balkans, India, Bali, Thailand, and Singapore. Everywhere they went, she kept sketchbooks and plein air diaries, contributing to her prolific output.

She enjoyed a close friendship with Swami Dayanada Saraswati, joining him at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu to paint a large mural. Her portrait of Swamiji hangs in the meditation temple of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Saylorsburg, PA, where she studied Advaita Vedanta for many years.

She is survived by her three children: Michael Wozmak and his wife Heidi Copeland of Peterborough, NH; David Wozmak of El Cerrito, CA; and Lisa Penny and her husband Philip of Ridgefield, CT; as well as five stepchildren: Charlotte, Taylor III, Jack, Lucy, and Beverly Morris. She also leaves behind 18 beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and many extended family members, friends, and students whose lives she touched.

A celebration of her life will be held in Peterborough on May 9, 2026. Further details will be forthcoming.