Bo Bartlett
Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are inspired by American Realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Norman Rockwell, and Andrew Wyeth. He paints in the Grand Manner of academic painting of the 18th and 19th centuries, integrating figure painting, portraiture, landscape, and still life into his scenes.
Following a long legacy of realist painters, Bartlett embarked on his career in the 1970s, at a time when the Art World embraced abstraction, conceptual art, and Minimalism. Bartlett is guided in his work by a quote by Robertson Davies, “Let your root feed your crown.” To Bartlett this means to paint your life, to be true to your temperament in order to maintain truth and originality throughout one’s work.
While depicted in a grand, narrative style, the stories Bartlett tells are open-ended. They celebrate the commonplace and personal. The scenes Bartlett depicts are familiar – children dressed up on Halloween, two young women riding a bike, a man rowing on a sunny day – yet there is “an oddity about his works that creates psychological pause within the viewer.” The uncanny nature, the familiar yet dreamlike quality of Bartlett’s work shows the influence of Surrealists such as Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Giorgio de Chirico. Bartlett often creates scenes that are highly improbable, but not entirely impossible.
Bartlett has had numerous solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include:
“Retrospective,” Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA
“Paintings from the Outpost,” Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
“Bo Bartlett: American Artist,” The Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL and Orlando Museum, Orlando FL
Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
The University of Mississippi Museum, Oxford, MS
“Paintings of Home,” Ilges Gallery, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA
“A Survey of Paintings,” W.C. Bradley Co. Museum, Columbus, GA
“Paintings of Home,” P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY
“Bo Bartlett,” Ogden Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
Collections
Bo Bartlett
Born 1955
Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
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