Barbara Caruso (1937–2009) was an abstract painter.

Career

After graduation from the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

in 1965, Caruso worked in Toronto. In 1985, she moved to

Paris, Ontario Paris (2021 population, 14,956) is a community located in the County of Brant, Ontario, Canada. It lies just northwest from the city of Brantford at the spot where the Nith River empties into the Grand River. Paris was voted "the Prettiest Littl ...

with her husband poet, editor and publisher and bookseller Nelson Ball (1942-2019).

Work

Caruso considered her paintings to be about the nature of colour, and her drawings to be about the elements that constitute the work.: “line, direction, shape and surface”. Her work is “orderly” or as she described it, “rigorously planar”. She took the strictures of post-painterly abstraction to heart, denying spontaneous gesture, the textured surface or any suggestion of illusory pictorial depth, although she admitted seriality. Since 1966, she exhibited twenty-one solo shows, most notably at public galleries such as the

Agnes Etherington Art Centre The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, in the heart of the historic campus of Queen's University. Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, the gallery has received a number of awards for its exhib ...

, Kingston (1979);

Confederation Centre Art Gallery The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG; french: Musée d’art du Centre de la Confédération) is an art museum that forms a part of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The art museum pavilion f ...

, Charlottetown, P.E.I. (1977); and Owens Art Gallery,

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

, Sackville, N.B. (1975), and at private and co-op galleries such as Artword Gallery, Toronto (1999). She also participated in numerous group shows in Canada and abroad, including ''Formalist Encounters'', organized by the Woodstock Art Gallery which travelled in Ontario (1986–1987); and ''The Empirical Presence'' (1991) at Galerie Optica in Montreal. Her work is in public collections including the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, and others as well as in private collections in Canada and the U.S. She received awards from the Canada Council (a travel award in 1971) and the Ontario Arts Council. Caruso was editor and printer/publisher of Seripress (1972-1980), publishing visual and concrete poetry. Her writing on art appeared in Canadian art and literary publications. In 1986, an issue of ''Open Letter'' was devoted to her work. In 2001, her book ''Wording the Silent Art'' was published by Mercury Press in Toronto. Her book of memoirs, ''A Painter's Journey'', consisting of diary entries made between June, 1966, and December, 1973, was published by the same press in 2005. A second volume of ''A Painter's Journey'', detailing 1974-1979, came out in 1979.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caruso, Barbara Canadian women painters Canadian abstract artists OCAD University alumni 1937 births 2009 deaths Canadian people of Italian descent Visual poets