For 30 years she has used her home and family as a source for compositions based on observation and imagination. Her oil and gouache paintings have been exhibited widely, most recently at Swarthmore College, PA; Smith College, MA; and Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia. She has earned awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Tiffany Foundation, and from Brandeis University, where she holds the Charles Bloom Chair in the Arts of Design. Lichtman has been a guest artist at colleges, universities, and painting programs throughout the U.S. and Europe. She received an A.B. degree from Brown University and an M.F.A. from Yale University. She lives in the woods of southeastern Massachusetts.