Bo Bartlett (born December 29, 1955) is an

American Realist American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...

painter working in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...

and Wheaton Island, Maine.

Early life

Bo Bartlett was born James William Bartlett III on December 29, 1955, in Columbus, Georgia. Bartlett’s parents, Opal and Bill Bartlett (James William Bartlett Jr.), were from Columbus. His father was a

woodworker Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials ...

and furniture designer, and his mother was a medical librarian. At the age of 18 he traveled to

Florence, Italy Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

where he studied mural painting under the American expatriate, Ben Long. In 1974 he returned to the United States and married. He moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1975. In 2004, Bartlett traveled around the world before moving to

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, in 2005.

Education

Bartlett studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and then the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryl ...

. He received a Certificate of Fine Art from PAFA in 1980. During this period, he studied anatomy at the

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) is a private medical school with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and additional locations in Suwanee, Georgia (PCOM Georgia) and Moultrie, Georgia (PCOM South Georgia). Founded ...

, mirroring the approach of the 19th century realist painter,

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

. During his time in Pennsylvania, Bartlett apprenticed under

Nelson Shanks John Nelson Shanks (December 23, 1937 – August 28, 2015) was an American artist and painter. His best known works include his portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales, first shown at Hirschl & Adler Gallery in New York City, April 24 to June 2 ...

. Bartlett then went on to study liberal arts at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

from 1980 to 1981. In 1986, Bartlett received a Certificate in Filmmaking from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. The influence of film is apparent in Bartlett’s work. Cinematic scale, lighting, and narrative staging are important elements throughout his career.

Painting career

Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are inspired by

American Realism American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...

as defined by artists such as

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...

Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for '' American Gothic'' (193 ...

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

, and

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...

. He paints in the

Grand Manner Grand Manner refers to an idealized aesthetic style derived from classicism and the art of the High Renaissance. In the eighteenth century, British artists and connoisseurs used the term to describe paintings that incorporated visual metaphors in ...

of academic painting of the 18th and 19th centuries, integrating figure painting, portraiture, landscape, and still life into his scenes. Following a long legacy of realist painters, Bartlett embarked on his career in the 1970s, at a time when the Art World embraced abstraction,

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

, and

Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

. Bartlett is guided in his work by a quote by

Robertson Davies William Robertson Davies (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished " men of letters" ...

, “Let your root feed your crown.” To Bartlett this means to paint your life, to be true to your temperament in order to maintain truth and originality throughout one’s work. While depicted in a grand, narrative style, the stories Bartlett tells are open-ended. They celebrate the commonplace and personal. The scenes Bartlett depicts are familiar – children dressed up on Halloween, two young women riding a bike, a man rowing on a sunny day – yet there is “an oddity about his works that creates psychological pause within the viewer.” The uncanny nature, the familiar yet dreamlike quality of Bartlett’s work shows the influence of

Surrealists Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

such as Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

. Bartlett often creates scenes that are highly improbable, but not entirely impossible.

Notable Works

''Young Life'', 78 x 108 inches, oil on linen, 1994, private collection on loan to Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA. ''Young Life'' is a play on the painting, ''American Gothic'', by Grant Wood. The scene is depicts a young American family, posing after a successful hunt. There is a darker undercurrent in the painting found in the mud splattered over the truck, the blood on the man’s pants, and the young boy mimicking the pose of the rifle-armed man. ''Homeland'', 134 x 204 inches, oil on linen, 1994, McCormick Place, Chicago. ''Homeland'' references several historical paintings including '' Washington Crossing the Delaware'', ''The'' ''

Raft of the Medusa ''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791� ...

'' and ''

Liberty Leading the People ''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...

''. ''Lifeboat'', 80 x 100 inches, oil on linen, 1998, private collection, previously on loan to the Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA. ''Lifeboat'' is inspired by

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

’s ''The Fog Warning''. The man in the rowboat is dressed casually and the day is bright, yet he is surrounded by threats including a shark in the water and a large crashing wave. ''The American'', 82 x 100 inches, oil on linen, 2016, Mennello Museum, Orlando, FL.

Exhibitions

Bartlett has had numerous solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include: * “Retrospective,” Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA * “Paintings from the Outpost,” Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME * “Bo Bartlett: American Artist,” The Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL and Orlando Museum, Orlando FL * Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY * Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA * The University of Mississippi Museum, Oxford, MS * “Paintings of Home,” Ilges Gallery, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA * “A Survey of Paintings,” W.C. Bradley Co. Museum, Columbus, GA * “Paintings of Home,” P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY * “Bo Bartlett,” Ogden Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA * Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA * Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA * Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA * Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA * Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC

Collections

Denver Museum of Art The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...

* Santa Barbara Museum of Art *

Morris Museum of Art The Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia was established in 1985 as a non-profit foundation by William S. Morris III, publisher of The Augusta Chronicle, in memory of his parents, as the first museum dedicated to the collection and exhibition ...

* Mennello Museum of American Art *

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

Hunter Museum of American Art The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, early modernism, re ...

Frye Art Museum The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary ex ...

Crystal Bridges Museum Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission. Overview ...

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...

. The film collaboration marked the beginning of Bartlett's relationship with Wyeth as a lifelong friend. ''Snow Hill'' was completed in 1995.''Snow Hill'' received the CINE Golden Eagle Award, the Gold Apple Award from the National Educational Media Network Awards, Best Documentary from Hot Springs DFF, Best Biography from CINDY Awards, and Best Documentary from Philadelphia FVF. Bartlett went on to co-direct ''SEE: An Art Road Trip'' with Betsy Eby. He also directed ''HELGA,'' a documentary short about Andrew Wyeth’s muse and model, and ''Things Don’t Stay Fixed''.

Things Don't Stay Fixed

''Things Don’t Stay Fixed'' is a 2021 American

Southern Gothic Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...

drama film. It is the first feature film by Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby. The film tells the story of a worldly photojournalist returning to the Deep South to stop his daughter’s wedding and save her future, only to find that it is he who has been stuck in the past. The film stars

William Gregory Lee William Gregory Lee (born January 24, 1973) is an American actor. Career His first prominent role was as Virgil on '' Xena: Warrior Princess''. He also played the character of Zack on the series '' Dark Angel'' (2000–2001). Lee has appeared i ...

, Tara Ochs, Brenda Bynum, Desi Evans, and Melissa Saint-Amand. The film follows photojournalist Sam Grace (

) as he returns home to the Deep South in an attempt to stop his daughter, Nina (Melissa Saint-Amand), from what he sees as a misguided marriage. Sam’s return home becomes more telling as he discovers that he’s the one that has been stuck in the past all along. There are many parallels between the experiences of Sam Grace and Bo Bartlett's own life. Sam returns to his wife’s family home much in the way Bartlett, and his artist wife Betsy Eby returned to

in 2012 to live in Bartlett’s childhood home. “Andrew Wyeth taught me how to be inspired by your own life, by your experiences, and how to get it into the work,” says Bartlett. “At its heart, this is a film about grief, and finding joy and beauty in the midst of it,” says star Melissa Saint-Amand. ''Things Don’t Stay Fixed'' draws inspiration from the Southern Gothic literary works of

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

and

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...

. With dreamlike imagery and a painterly stream of consciousness, the film both evokes and bends the Southern genre of films such as ''

Cool Hand Luke ''Cool Hand Luke'' is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman and featuring George Kennedy in an Oscar-winning performance. Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a Florida prison cam ...

'', ''

Driving Miss Daisy '' Driving Miss Daisy'' is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Alfred Uhry, based on his 1987 play of the same name. The film stars Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, and Dan Aykroyd. Freeman reprised his ...

'', and ''

Beasts of the Southern Wild ''Beasts of the Southern Wild'' is a 2012 American fantasy-drama film directed, co-written, and co-scored by Benh Zeitlin. It was adapted by Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar from Alibar's one-act play ''Juicy and Delicious''. The film stars Quvenzhané W ...

''. Bo Bartlett co-wrote the screenplay for ''Things Don’t Stay Fixed'' with playwright Sandra Deer in the 1980s, as Bartlett received a Certificate in Filmmaking from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Bartlett and Eby worked as co-directors and producers on the film, as they have on previous documentary projects. The film also features original music by Eby. ''Things Don’t Stay'' ''Fixed'' is set and filmed in Bartlett’s native

and was done in conjunction with the

Georgia Film Academy The Georgia Film Academy (GFA) is a not-for-profit entertainment arts program based in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a collaboration of the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia created in 2015 by Georgia state leaders ...

with an all-Georgia cast. Bartlett said, "To me, there’s nothing worse than having a bunch of Hollywood actors trying to fake Southern accents. So we had all Southern actors.” The film is distributed by

Indican Pictures Indican Pictures is an American entertainment company and film distributor. The company was founded by Randolph Kret and Shaun Hill. Indican Pictures has distributed such films as ''The Boondock Saints'', ''A Green Story'', ''The Girl Next Door' ...

and was released in select theaters on February 12, 2021, and on streaming platforms on February 16, 2021.

Filmography

Awards

Bartlett is the recipient of many awards including: * The South Arts State Fellowship Award for Georgia (2019) * Portrait Society of America Excellence in Fine Art Education Award to the Bo Bartlett Center (2019) * Gibbes Society 1858 Southern Contemporary Art Prize (2017) * The Brookstone Distinguished Alumni Award (2013) * The PEW Fellowship in the Arts (1993) * The Philadelphia Museum of Art Award (1987) * Eleanor S. Gray Still Life Prize (1980) * Benjamin Lanard Memorial Award (1980) * Thouron Prize (1980) * The William Emlen Cresson Traveling Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1980) * Cecelia Beaux Memorial Portrait Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1979) * Charles Toppan Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1978) * Packard Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1977)

Bo Bartlett Center

The Bo Bartlett Center opened in January 2018, as part of the Corn Center for Visual Arts at

Columbus State University Columbus State University is a public university in Columbus, Georgia. Founded as Columbus College in 1958, the university was established and is administered by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. History The university w ...

in Columbus, Georgia. The center is an 18,425 square foot interactive gallery space, studio space, and teaching space designed by

Tom Kundig Tom Kundig (born 1954) is an American architect and principal in the Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig Architects. He has won numerous professional honors. In 2015, Princeton Architectural Press released ''Tom Kundig: Works'', a collection of Kun ...

. The Bo Bartlett Center houses more than 300 paintings and drawings as well as the complete archive of sketch books, correspondence, journals, recordings, photographs, artistic notes, memorabilia, objects and objects d’art relevant to the production of Bartlett’s work. The art collection belonging to Bartlett's sister, Sandy Scarborough, and her husband Otis, known as the Scarborough Collection, makes up a large part of the works on view at the Bo Bartlett Center. Outreach programs include Art in Jail, a series of drawing and painting classes taught by Bartlett to men incarcerated at the Muscogee County Jail. Painting and drawing classes are also taught to the homeless community through the program, Home is Where the Art is. Artists are provided with materials and are able to sell their work. Annual exhibitions for both programs are held at the Center. Other programs include Art Makes You Smart! taught to schoolchildren, Artistic Ability taught to adults with disabilities, and Kindness Through Art, geared toward children living in homeless shelters.

Personal life

In 1986 Bartlett spent time in Maine, where he befriended the Wyeths. In 1998 Bartlett purchased Wheaton Island, Maine, where he now lives and works every summer. Bartlett married artist Betsy Eby on Wheaton Island in 2007.

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartlett, Bo 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 1955 births Living people People from Columbus, Georgia Artists from Georgia (U.S. state) Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Pew Fellows in the Arts American contemporary painters Realist painters Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine alumni 20th-century American male artists