Will Barnet's artistic career as a painter and printmaker spanned nearly eight decades of continuous creativity. Few artists, other than perhaps Picasso or Monet, can claim such an extended period of uninterrupted and innovative art making. From the darkness of the Great Depression to the opening decade of the twenty-first century, his oeuvre reflects his unique interpretation of the art world's evolving genres: Social Realism, Modernism, Abstract Expressionism, and ultimately representational Minimalism with the human figure as his primary subject.
Barnet was devoted to making art every day and worked diligently even at the very end of his life. "The Old Masters are still alive after 400 years, and that's what I want to be," he once said. "At the age of 10 or 12, I discovered that being an artist would give me an ability to create something which would live on after death." Live on it does; in addition to his acclaimed body of work, he influenced a broad spectrum of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly, and Ethel Fisher, and he held teaching positions at the Cooper Union, Yale University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Barnet's works can be found in nearly every major public collection in the United States, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the National Gallery of Art. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the first Artist's Lifetime Achievement Award Medal given on the occasion of the National Academy of Design's 175th anniversary. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama in 2011.
The Artist Book Foundation is delighted and honored to announce the upcoming publication of Will Barnet, the first comprehensive monograph on the artist in nearly 40 years. With scholarly essays by the four distinguished authors, an extensive plate section, a comprehensive chronology, lists of awards and exhibitions, as well as a detailed bibliography, this monograph will be a thorough presentation of Barnet's iconic images and consistently evolving style while celebrating his unquenchable joie de vivre.
Bruce Weber was senior curator at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts. His specialty is in American painting, sculpture, and drawings from the late-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Gail Stavitsky is Chief Curator at the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, NJ, specializing in American Modernism. She has written extensively on art and her titles include Will Barnet: A Timeless World. Christopher Green studies modern and contemporary art, specializing in Native American Art of the twentieth century. He currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Swarthmore College. Jessica Nicoll is director and Louise Ines Doyle chief curator of the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. She also serves as the director of Smith's Museum Concentration, advising and instructing students in museum history, theory, and practice. Ona Barnet is the artist's daughter. She is the director of the Will Barnet foundation.
