Featured Work
Exhibitions




October 20, 2016 - November 19, 2016
Behind the Easel: The Unique Voices of 20 Contemporary Representational Painters
View the Exhibition →News


Fine Art Connoisseur feature on Bo Bartlett
July 14, 2020
Fine Art Connoisseur August 2020
View the Article →
Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby in Zest Magazine
February 8, 2020
Winter Edition of Maine's Zest Magazine
View the Article →

Bo Bartlett Center Opening
February 7, 2018
Bo Bartlett Center Opening 921 Front Avenue Columbus State University River Park Campus Columbus, GA
View the Article →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. He 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, his island summer home in Maine, his home in Pennsylvania or the surroundings of his studio and residence in Washington state, they represent a deeper, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home.”
–Tom Butler, excerpt from the book Bo Bartlett, Heartland
Featured Exhibitions with Somerville Manning Gallery
2019 Seattle Art Fair, Seattle, WA
2018 Seattle Art Fair, Seattle, WA
2018 Philadelphia Antiques Show, Philadelphia, PA
2016 Behind the Easel: The Unique Voices of 20 Contemporary Representational Painters
2014 Philadelphia Antiques Show, Philadelphia, PA
2010 American Masters: Art of the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries
2009 Five Artists of Accomplishment from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2009 American Green
2007 Travelogue
Selected Solo Exhibitions
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, 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
2013 The University of Mississippi Museum, Oxford, MS
2011 A Survey of Paintings, W.C. Bradley Co. Museum, Columbus, GA
2011 Sketchbooks, Journals and Studies, Columbus Bank & Trust, Columbus, 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 Still Point, Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
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 Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
2003 Columbus Museum, Columbus GA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 A Telling Instinct: John James Audobon and Contemporary Art, Asheville Art Museum, Ashville, NC
2019 Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby, Ithan Substation No. 1, Villanova, 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 Nelson Shanks and His Influence: Past, Present and Future, Stanek Gallery, PA
2017 PoetsArtists, Arcadia Contemporary, CA
2017 The New Baroque, Booth Gallery, NY
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
2015 Art Basel, Ameringer McEnery & Yohe, Miami Beach, FL
2013 Nocturnes: Romancing the Night, National Arts Club, New York, NY
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 Thriving in Seattle: A Retrospective, GAGE Academy of Art, Seattle, WA
2010 private (dis)play, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2009 The Armory Show, New York, NY
2009 Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
2009 PAFA Alumni Invitational: Legacies, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2008 Los Angeles Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Pulse Miami, Miami, FL
2007 Andrew Wyeth in Context, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Education
1986 New York University, Certificate in Filmmaking
1976 – 81 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Certificate of Fine Art
1986 University of Pennsylvania, Liberal Arts
1977 – 78 Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Anatomy Studies
Selected Awards and Honors
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
The Brandywine Art Museum, Chadds Ford, PA
Mennello Museun 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
Hamilton Square, Washington, D.C.
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
Terrell Place, Washington D.C.
United States Mint, Philadelphia, PA
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Seven Bridges Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR