Geraldine Anne Virginia Coniff Kellogg, an artist and gallerist in St. Augustine, Fla., died there on April 6, 2021 after a long struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She was 78.
Known by all as Deane Bloomberg, she lived in Provincetown for a dozen years or more in the 1960s and ’70s, when her children were young and she was married to Eric Bloomberg. She was a hostess at the Plain & Fancy, the Commercial Street restaurant run by Lenore Ross and Pat Shultz.
She was born in Connecticut to the late Edward Keating Coniff and Virginia Anne Johnson Coniff. “She was a free spirit and a wild child who drove on her own side of the road,” wrote her daughter, Kirsten. Alethea and Ciro Cozzi mentioned Deane and her art in Ciro & Sal’s Cookbook (1987), and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum has one of her pieces in its collection. Other museums and many private collectors owned her work.
She moved to Florida around 1975 but continued to visit the Outer Cape frequently over the years, most recently in the summer of 2019 to take a Castle Hill workshop.
Deane’s group gallery, 39 Cordova, which she ran with four other women artists, was a fixture in the St. Augustine art scene. She also managed another group gallery, Amiro Art and Found, and was a member of Butterfield Garage Gallery. In a brief online biography, she wrote of herself, “So here I am, a self-taught artist, living and working here in St. Augustine. As I paint, I learn more about myself. When using a combination of charcoal, acrylic paint, ink and/or collage on paper or canvas, a bold clear image emerges full of color, texture, and energy that make me curious and wanting to explore more.”
She is survived by her husband of more than 35 years, Dennis Kellogg, who cared for her unstintingly in her last year, with Covid making it especially difficult. She also leaves three siblings, Peg Kane of Canandaigua, N.Y., Casey Coniff of West Hartford, Conn., and Jeff Coniff of Longmont, Colo. and their families; two children, Kirsten Bloomberg Feldman of Truro and Brett Avelin of Guilford, Conn. and their spouses; four grandchildren, Ethan and Charlotte Feldman and Eamonn and Miles Avelin; four Wayman cousins, Jim, Margot, Ted, and Liz and their families; two cats, Frederica and Bernie; and many friends.
There will be a memorial for Deane when the world feels a little safer.
