Jennifer Bartlett
Born 1941, Long Beach, California
1963 BA Mills College, Oakland, California
1965 MFA Yale School of Art
Selected museum exhibitions: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2020); The Drawing Center, New York (2016); Cleveland Museum of Art (2014); Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts (2006); Orlando Museum of Art (1993); Brooklyn Museum (1985); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1984); Whitney Biennial (1981); Dartmouth College (1975); Mills College (1963)
Selected honors: Francis J. Greenburgher Award, Art Omi, New York (2019); Cultural Laureate, Historic Landmarks Preservation Center (1999); American Institute of Architects Award (1987); Harris Prize, Art Institute of Chicago (1976)
Selected public collections: Brooklyn Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art
From a series of paintings featuring boats and water, Knots, 2006, showcases Jennifer Bartlett’s unique approach to painting, which balances representation with abstraction, and painterly mark-making with a conceptual sophistication. Here, a field of hatched marks represent waves, while a boat makes its way across the picture plane, its acceleration noted in the painted sequence of knots in the painting’s upper register. According to Donald Kuspit, Bartlett’s use of language “draws you further – ‘conceptually further,’ as it were – into the picture, making it more mysterious – and subtly incomprehensible – than it might otherwise seem.”