Bo Bartlett

About

Born in Columbus, Georgia, Bo Bartlett studied in Florence, Italy with Ben Long IV, a student of Italian Fresco painter Pietro Annigoni, as well as Ives Gammel in Boston and Aaron Shickler and Harvey Dinnerstein in New York. often used family members as inspiration and models for his paintings.  In 1975, they moved to Philadelphia, where he studied realist painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  His modernist vision is depicted in scenes set in his childhood home in Georgia, as well as other homes in Maine, Pennsylvania and Washington State, and his subjects embody themes such as life and death, memory, and passage through time.

His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the US Artists American Fine Art Show in Philadelphia, PA; the Edie Caldwell Gallery in Sausalito, CA; the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME; and the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, GA.  He also has received many awards, such as a PEW Fellowship in the Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art Award, Cecilia Beaux Memorial Portraits Prize, and a Packard Prize from the PAFA.  His work can be found in many public collections, such as the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, SC; the La Salle University Museum of Art in Philadelphia, PA; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, CA; and the Hunter Museum of American Art, TN.

Bo Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are well within the tradition of American realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America’s heart—its land and its people—and describes the beauty he finds in everyday life. His paintings celebrate the underlying epic nature of the commonplace and the personal significance of the extraordinary.

“Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged. He pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. Life, death, passage, memory, and confrontation coexist easily in his world. Family and friends are the cast of characters that appear in his dreamlike narrative works. Although the scenes are set around his childhood home in Georgia or his island summer home in Maine, they represent a deeper, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home.”

–Tom Butler, excerpt from the book Bo Bartlett, Heartland

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2025         Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2025         Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY 
2024         Saudade, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
2023         Earthly Matters, Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
2023         Earthly Matters, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, GA
2023         Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2023         Cirque De La Vie, Lyme Academy, Old Lyme, CT
2023         Wheaton, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland ME
2022         Earthly Matters, The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
2021         Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2021         Weber Fine Art, Greenwich, CT
2019         Bo Bartlett – Forty Years of Drawing, The Florence Academy of Art, Jersey City, NJ
2018          Retrospective, Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
2017          Paintings from the Outpost, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
2017          Mennello Museum of American Art and Orlando Museum, FL
2016          Ameringer McEnery Yohe, New York, NY
2014         Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
2010         Paintings of Home, PPOW Gallery, New York, NY
2009         Bo Bartlett, Forum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009         Bo Bartlett, Ogden Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
2007         Travelogue, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2007         Still Point, Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
2006         Manifest Destiny, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
2004         Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2004         Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
2004         Innocence Found, DFN Gallery, New York, NY
2004         Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
2003         Columbus Museum, Columbus GA
1996         F.A.N. Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990         Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
1986         The More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1982         Marion Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025       Eye of the Blackbird, The Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
2025       Inner Sanctums, Entheon, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, NY
2024       Big Stories, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2024       25th Anniversary Exhibition, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2024       Celebrating the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art, Gibbes Museum, Charleston, SC
2023       Big Stories, Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
2023       Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Picture This, Albany Museum of Art, Albany, GA.
2022       COMPETERE: an exhibition of artist couples, Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
2022       Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Picture This, Lyndon House Art Center, Athens, GA
2021       Extra Ordinary, Magic Mystery, and Imagination in American Realism, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
2020       A Telling Instinct: John James Audubon and Contemporary Art, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
2019       Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby, Ithan Substation No. 1, Villanova, PA
2019       Innovation and Vitality, Avery Galleries, Bryn Mawr, PA
2018       Belief in Giants, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2018       The Serious and the Smirk, Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, PA
2017       Uncompromising Visions, Cerulean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2017       The New Baroque, Booth Gallery, New York, NY
2016       Behind the Easel: The Unique Voices of 20 Contemporary Representational Painters, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2016       The Things We Carry: Contemporary Art in the South, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
2016       Rockwell and Realism in an Abstract World, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA
2016       Truth & Vision: 21st Century Realism, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
2013       The Philadelphia Story, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
2013       The Outwin Boochever 2013 Portrait Competition Exhibition, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
2012       Perception of Self, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
2010       American Masters: Art of the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2009       Five Artists of Accomplishment from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2009       American Green, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2007       Travelogue, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2007       Andrew Wyeth in Context, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2003       Transforming the Commonplace, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
1999       Changing Faces: Contemporary Portraiture, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
1991       Ex-Patriots, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
1988       New York Inspired: Past and Present, John Szoke Gallery, New York, NY

Selected Awards and Honors

2019       Georgia Fellow – 2019 South Arts Prize, Columbia, SC
2019       Atelier Focus Fellowship, Air Serenbe, Atlanta, GA
2017       1858 Prize for Southern Contemporary Art, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
2014       Columbus State University Honorary Alumni Award
2013       Brookstone School Distinguished Alumnus Award
2005       Ursinus College Distinguished Artist Award
1996       CINE Golden Eagle Award (for Snow Hill)
1996       Gold Apple Award – National Educational Media Network Awards (for Snow Hill)
1996       Best Documentary – Hot Springs DFF (for Snow Hill)
1996       Best Biography – CINDY Awards (for Snow Hill)
1996       Best Documentary – Philadelphia FVF (for Snow Hill)
1994       PEW Fellowship in the Arts
1987       Philadelphia Museum of Art Award
1987       Museum Merit Award, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
1981       Benjamin Lanard Memorial Award, South Street Art Supply Prize
1981       Museum Merit Award, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
1980       First Thouron Prize
1980       Consolidated/Drake Press Award
1980       Eleanor Grey Still Life Prize
1979       Cecelia Beaux Memorial Portrait Prize
1979       First Purchase Award, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
1978       Charles Toppan Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1977       Packard Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Selected Public Collections

Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA
Mennello Museum of American Art, FL
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, LA
Academy of Music, Philadelphia, PA
The Carpenter’s Union Hall, Washington D.C.
The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
Curtis Institute, Philadelphia, PA
Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO
Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
Hunter Museum of American Art, TN
La Salle University Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
McCormick Place Metropolis Pier and Exposition Authority, South Hall, Chicago, IL
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA
Office of the Governor, Harrisburg, PA
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, PA
United States Mint, Philadelphia, PA
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Seven Bridges Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA

Education

1986            New York University, Certificate in Filmmaking
1980 – 81    University of Pennsylvania, Liberal Arts
1977 – 78    Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Anatomy Studies
1976 – 81    Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Certificate of Fine Art

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