Jennifer Bartlett
Encyclopedia
Jennifer Losch Bartlett is an American
artist
. She is best-known for paintings combining abstract
and representational
styles.
in Oakland, California. While a student, she formed a friendship with the future mixed-media sculptor Elizabeth Murray
. Bartlett received her BFA in 1963; she then traveled to New Haven to study at Yale School of Art and Architecture
and received her MFA in 1965, at a time when minimalism
was the dominant style. Bartlett's instructors included the artists James Rosenquist
, Jim Dine
, Claes Oldenburg
, Robert Rauschenberg
, Alex Katz
, and Al Held
. Bartlett has described the experience of study there as her broadest influence: "I'd walked into my life." Fellow Yale Art and Architecture alumni of the 1960s include the painters, photographers, and sculptors Brice Marden
, Richard Serra
, Chuck Close
, Nancy Graves
, and Robert Mangold
.
When asked by Murray in a 2005 interview about what she was thinking as a first-year art student, Bartlett replied:
Bartlett is best known for her paintings and prints of mundane objects—especially houses—executing in a style that combines elements of both representational and abstract art. In 1981, she created a two-hundred foot mural for the Federal Building in Atlanta, Georgia
. Bartlett has completed commissions for Volvo
, Saatchi
, Information Sciences Institute
, and Battery Park
.
in New York City
, the Smithsonian American Art Museum
in Washington, D.C.
, the Tate Gallery
in London
, the Boca Raton Museum of Art
in Florida
, the Walker Art Center
in Minneapolis, the Addison Gallery of American Art
in Andover, Massachusetts
, the Cleveland Museum of Art
, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
, the Currier Museum of Art
in Manchester, New Hampshire
, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
, the Israel Museum
in Jerusalem, the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College
in Virginia
, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
in Texas
, the Wake Forest University
Fine Arts Gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
, and the Whitney Museum of American Art
in New York City.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
. She is best-known for paintings combining abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
and representational
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
styles.
Education
Bartlett grew up in the suburbs of Long Beach before she attended Mills CollegeMills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
in Oakland, California. While a student, she formed a friendship with the future mixed-media sculptor Elizabeth Murray
Elizabeth Murray (artist)
Elizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R...
. Bartlett received her BFA in 1963; she then traveled to New Haven to study at Yale School of Art and Architecture
Yale School of Art
The Yale School of Art is one of twelve constituent schools of Yale University. It is a professional art school, granting only Masters of Fine Arts degrees to those completing studies in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture....
and received her MFA in 1965, at a time when minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
was the dominant style. Bartlett's instructors included the artists James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
, Jim Dine
Jim Dine
Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...
, Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, Alex Katz
Alex Katz
Alex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
, and Al Held
Al Held
Al Held was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings.-Background and education:...
. Bartlett has described the experience of study there as her broadest influence: "I'd walked into my life." Fellow Yale Art and Architecture alumni of the 1960s include the painters, photographers, and sculptors Brice Marden
Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
, Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and sometime-filmmaker known for her focus on natural phenomena like camels or maps of the moon...
, and Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
.
When asked by Murray in a 2005 interview about what she was thinking as a first-year art student, Bartlett replied:
- Being an artist, Ed Bartlett, Bach cello suites, Cézanne, getting into graduate school, getting to New York, Albert Camus, James Joyce. I’d drawn constantly since childhood: large drawings of every creature alive in the ocean; Spanish missions with Indians camping in the foreground, in the background Spanish men throwing cowhides over a cliff to a waiting ship; hundreds of Cinderellas on five-by-eight pads, all alike but with varying hair color and dresses.
Career
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
. Bartlett has completed commissions for Volvo
Volvo
AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...
, Saatchi
Saatchi
Saatchi is an arabic name meaning "clockmaker", from the Arabic -ساعة / ساعت sā'ah / sā'at, "clock", and the originally Turkish craftsman's suffix جي -çi, here transliterated chi.Saatchi in Tamil means "witness"....
, Information Sciences Institute
Information Sciences Institute
The Information Sciences Institute is a research and development unit of the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering which focuses on computer and communications technology and information processing...
, and Battery Park
Battery Park
Battery Park is a 25-acre public park located at the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City, facing New York Harbor. The Battery is named for artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city's early years in order to protect the settlement behind them...
.
Collections
Bartlett's work is represented in a number of public collections, including the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the Boca Raton Museum of Art
Boca Raton Museum of Art
The Boca Raton Museum of Art is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park. It houses works of art by a number of the great masters.-About:...
in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
in Minneapolis, the Addison Gallery of American Art
Addison Gallery of American Art
The Addison Gallery of American Art, as a department of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art...
in Andover, Massachusetts
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
, the Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
The now defunct Contemporary Museum, Honolulu was the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art. The Contemporary Museum had two venues: in residential Honolulu at the historic Spalding House, and downtown Honolulu at First Hawaiian Center.-Collection:Artists...
, the Currier Museum of Art
Currier Museum of Art
The Currier Museum of Art is an art museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, featuring European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture. The permanent collection includes works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, O'Keeffe, Calder, Scheier and Goldsmith, John Singer Sargent,...
in Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is the largest city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, the tenth largest city in New England, and the largest city in northern New England, an area comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It is in Hillsborough County along the banks of the Merrimack River, which...
, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
, the Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
in Jerusalem, the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College
Randolph College
Randolph College is a private liberal arts and sciences college located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Founded in 1891 as Randolph-Macon Woman's College, it was renamed on July 1, 2007, when it became coeducational....
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was first granted a Charter from the State of Texas in 1892 as the "Fort Worth Public Library and Art Gallery", evolving through several name changes and different facilities in Fort Worth...
in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, the Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...
Fine Arts Gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...
, and the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
in New York City.
Sources
- Eisenberg, Deborah, Air, 24 Hours, Jennifer Bartlett, New York, H.N. Abrams, 1994.
- Goldwater, Marge, Jennifer Bartlett, New York, Abbeville Press, 1985.
- Katz, Vincent, Bartlett Shows Her Colors, Art in America, January 2007, 106-111.
- Richardson, Brenda, Jennifer Bartlett, Early Plate Work, Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, New Haven, distributed by Yale University Press, 2006.
- Scott, Sue A., Jennifer Bartlett, A Print Retrospective, Orlando, Florida, Orlando Museum of Art, 1993.
- Van der Marck, Jan, Reconnecting, Recent Work by Jennifer Bartlett, Detroit, Founders Society Detroit Institute of Arts, 1987.