Will Barnet, 2000. Photo by Marc Royce.
In his nine-decade long career, Will Barnet (American, 1911-2012) created carefully structured abstract and figural works of spacious monumentality and measured intimacy, in which the natural influence of color, shape, and the compositional life of the canvas are honored. His figural work references Egyptian hieroglyphics in their seemingly rigid structure, while invoking a sense of intimacy via careful details of composition and color. His abstract paintings convey varied geometric forms premised upon the same approach to space and structure as his realism. As he wrote of his relationship to the canvas: "We must realize that the quadrangle on which we draw or paint has basic dimensions and movements. It moves structurally according to its basic architecture, and the artist builds with the horizontal and vertical within the quadrangle's architecture.”
Barnet was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, the youngest child of a large Eastern European family. During his early upbringing in the small coastal town, he forged a deep connection to the landscape, architecture, and atmosphere of New England, which he would return to throughout his career. He also studied the old masters from an early age, particularly Vermeer, whose mark is visible in the light and composition of many of his works. Barnet began his formal artistic studies at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, later moving to New York in 1931 to study at the Art Students League. He soon became the league’s official printer, and would continue printmaking throughout his career. Although his earliest work followed the trend of social realism, by the late 1940s, Cubist and other modernist experimentations gave way to an embrace of total abstraction, and throughout the 50s and 60s Barnet continued producing abstract work. In the 1960s he transitioned to the figural style for which he would be best recognized—his spacious, geometric scenes of family life (mostly his own), and portraits of pensive, solitary women in New England. Barnet would return to abstract work at the end of his life, starting in 2004 until his death in 2012.
During his long career, Barnet taught at the Art Students League, Cooper Union and Yale University. He was a member of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. In 2011, Barnet received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in Washington DC.
Untitled Study For The Terrace, ca. 1994, graphite and watercolor on vellum, 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches
Study For The Kitchen, 1992, carbon on vellum, 9 1/2 x 8 inches
Study For The Kitchen, 1992, carbon on vellum, 11 x 15 3/8 inches
The Dream I, 1990, watercolor and carbon on vellum, 11 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches
The Robin (Emily Dickinson), 1989, charcoal on vellum, 23 3/8 x 29 3/8 inches
Wild Night, c. 1989, charcoal on vellum, 17 x 11 1/2 inches
Elim In The Window (4th), c. 1989, charcoal on vellum, 17 x 11 inches
Poem 1764, c. 1989, charcoal on vellum, 17 x 11 1/2 inches
Untitled (Woman In Doorway), c. 1989, charcoal on vellum, 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
Lonliness, c. 1989, charcoal on paper, 16 x 12 3/4 inches
Letter To World, c. 1989, charcoal on paper, 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
Poem 249, c. 1989, charcoal on paper, 19 1/4 x 13 inches
Emily Dickinson, June 1988, 1988, charcoal on paper, 9 x 7 1/2 inches
Study For Ariadne, 1980, watercolor on paper, 17 1/4 diameter
Paean, 1978, hand colored serigraph, 31 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches
Atlantis (Single Figure), 1975, pencil on paper, 17 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches
The Swing, c. 1974, watercolor and graphite on paper, 37 3/4 x 24 1/2 inches
Impulse, 1964, watercolor and pencil on paper, 13 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches
Impulse, 1964, watercolor on paper, 9 x 4 1/2 inches
Great Spokane, 1964, watercolor on vellum, 5 1/2 x 10 7/8 inches
Enclosure, 1963, charcoal on paper, 11 7/8 x 9 1/2 inches
Study For Recumbent Figure, c. 1960, oil and graphite on paper, 24 x 20 inches
Untitled, 1956-1960, mixed media on paper, 5 13/16 x 4 7/16 inches
Untitled, c. 1956 - 1960, mixed media on paper, 6 1/2 x 4 inches
Big Duluth-Study For Little Duluth, 1959, gouache on paper, 30 x 26 1/2 inches
Untitled, c. 1954-1959, mixed media on paper, 5 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches
Untitled, c. 1954-1959, mixed media on paper, 5 5/8 x 4 3/8 inches
Untitled, c. 1954 - 1956, mixed media on paper, 5 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches
Untitled, 1954, mixed media on paper, 5 5/8 x 3 3/8 inches
Untitled, c. 1953 - 1954, mixed media on paper, 6 3/16 x 4 1/8 inches
Will Barnet, Male and Female, 1954
Whitney Museum of American Art
Meet Will Barnet
Smithsonian American Art Museum
