Susanna J. Coffey (born 1949) is an American
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
and educator. She is the F. H. Sellers Professor in Painting at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives and works in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. She was elected a member the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
in 1999.
Susanna J. Coffey in AskArt.com
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Life
Coffey was born in New London, Connecticut
New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States, located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, Connecticut. It was one of the world's three busiest whaling ports for several decades ...
in 1949. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree magna cum laude from the University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
in 1977 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Art in 1982.
Collections
Coffey's work is held at a wide range of institutions, including Akron Art Museum
The Akron Art Museum is an art museum in Akron, Ohio, United States.
The museum first opened on February 1, 1922, as the Akron Art Institute. It was located in two borrowed rooms in the basement of the public library. The Institute offered clas ...
in Akron, Ohio
Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County, Ohio, Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 C ...
, Yale University Art Gallery, the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham MA, the Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, the Brauer Museum of Art
The Brauer Museum of Art is home to a collection of 19th- and 20th-century American art, world religious art, and Midwestern regional art. It is located in the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts (VUCA) on the campus of Valparaiso University ...
in Valparaiso, Indiana, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, the National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
in New York City, the Rockford Museum in Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...
, the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro, North Carolina and the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...
.[The artist's website](_blank)
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Awards
Susanna Coffey has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...
. Coffey received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
, a Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Artist x Artist award, a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, the Aeschylus Medal awarded by the city of Eleusis Greece, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Studio Program Award. Coffey has received honorary degrees from The University of Connecticut School of Fine Art and the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts
The Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is an art school in Old Lyme, Connecticut. From 1992 to 2019 it was a degree-granting institution, and from 2016 it was constituent college of the University of New Haven, as Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts.
Histo ...
.
Further reading
*Acoustiguide narration, The National Gallery of Art, on Judith Leyster’s Self Portrait
Article, “Artists Quarantine With Their Art Collections” Stephen Maine, Hyperallergic, May 23, 2020
* Book, Night Painting, Susanna Coffey MAB Books, editor Brice Brown, a selection of landscape paintings with writings by Dr. Carol Becker, Brice Brown, Jane Coffey, Jane Kenyon, Jennifer Samet and Mark Strand 2019
* Book, 50 Contemporary Women Artists, editors John Goslee and Heather Zises, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2018
Review of Elemental by Hearne Pardee The Brooklyn Rail February 2014
* Book, ″In Residence, Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth The Hood Museum of Art″, Dartmouth College, 2014
Review of From Life by John Yau, Hyperallergic November 25, 2012
* Review of Nocturne by John Goodrich, City Arts April 3, 2012
* Review of Pavers, City Arts, John Goodrich, January 12, 2011
* Book, ″Selected Contemporary American Figurative Painters″, Editor, Qimin Liu, Tianjin Peoples Fine Arts Publishing House, China, 2010
* Review of Night Paintings 1995-2010, Jeremy Bliss, New City, Chicago, April 22, 2010
* Catalog, ″Artist’s Response: Portraits and Self-Portraits″, from exhibition, Unexpected Reflections: The Portrait Reconsidered at Meridian Gallery, 2009, San Francisco CA, by Terri Cohn
* Review of Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009, The New York Times, Ken Johnson, July 22, 2009
* Article, “Looking at Herself” Kathleen Edgecomb, The New London Day, December 8, 05
* Review of Alpha Gallery show, Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, November 19, 2004
* Catalog, ''Susanna Coffey: Recent Work'', Strand, Mark, New York, André Emmerich, 2003
* Catalog, ''Susanna Coffey'', Tibor De Nagy Gallery, New York, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, 2001
* Catalog Susanna Coffey, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, 2001 essay by Michael Rooks, Poem
"In Sky" by Susan Wheeler
* Catalog, Susanna Coffey Studio Art Exhibition Program, Dartmouth College, September, 1998 Essays by Michael Rooks and Eileen Myles
References
External links
*
Artists Quarantined with Their Art, Hyperallergic June 20th 2020
Interview with Erica Hess for the podcast I like Your Work
WYBC Radio Interview: Brainard Carey with Susanna Coffey
Hyperallergic conversation with Susanna Coffey
Susanna Coffey on Pierre Bonnard
Catalog from Susanna Coffey's “Going to Ground” at the University of Tulsa
Why Give a Name to It? by John Yau in Hyperallergic
An Interview of Susanna Coffey with Rich Fisher on Tulsa Public Radio
Susanna Coffey Studies the Nature of Portraiture by John Yau in Hyperallergic
4 Artists on Expressing Love Through Their Work on Artsy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffey, Susanna
1949 births
Living people
People from New London, Connecticut
American portrait painters
Artists from New York City
Painters from Connecticut
21st-century American women painters
21st-century American painters
University of Connecticut alumni
Yale School of Art alumni