Bio

Diane Foug (1958-2019) was an American artist and designer who lived in San Francisco, California.

Education and Design Career

Diane studied pre-med at UC Davis and UC Berkeley, originally planning to become a veterinarian. As she learned various sciences, she found herself more and more drawn to design and the arts. She lived in New York City for four years after college, then returned to school at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena to study Graphic Design. She knew she was onto something when her first project as an intern at an LA design firm won an award. After graduating from ArtCenter, Diane worked for several leading design studios in San Francisco before starting her own firm, Diane Foug Design in 1992. Taking advantage of the transition to digital design and the emergence of the internet, Diane’s studio thrived and her work won many awards and created some of the first web sites on the internet. During this time, Diane also completed a Masters degree in Product Design at Stanford. Diane decided to close her firm after the birth of her third child to focus on raising her family and transition her career to fine art.

Art Career

In the mid 2000s, Diane turned to her true professional passion: Sculpture, drawing, and painting. She produced works in various media, including a series of paintings, wire sculptures, laminated bent wood sculptures, and large organic sculptures assembled from thousands of small wooden blocks. Diane constantly explored new materials and methods to express her art, and her work began to be recognized through a series of shows, awards, and collectors. Her largest scale work to date, a 7 foot wood sculpture, had just been completed and featured as the center piece of a show in San Francisco, when Diane was diagnosed with brain cancer, which two years later cut short the life and career of an incredibly talented, gracious, and humble person. She remains deeply loved and celebrated by those who knew her.

Personal Life

Diane was born in San Francisco in 1958 and raised in Palo Alto, California. Her father James Foug was a prominent architect and head of his own architecture firm James Foug and Associates. Her mother Barbara Foug was a homemaker. They both died when Diane was young, leaving her and her five siblings to grow into adulthood together without parents. Diane met her husband Toni Schneider in 1993 while studying at Stanford. They have three children, Sophie, Bennett, and Owen Schneider.