Barbara Rossi (artist)
{{Short description|American painter (1940–2023)}}
Barbara Rossi (September 20, 1940 – August 24, 2023) was an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group that in the 1960s and 1970s turned to representational art. She first exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center in 1969. She is known for meticulously rendered drawings and cartoonish paintings, as well as a personal vernacular. She worked primarily by making reverse paintings on plexiglass that reference lowbrow and outsider art.
Rossi was a teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.{{cite web|title=BARBARA ROSSI: POOR TRAITS 09/16/15-01/03/16 | url=http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/barbara-rossi-poor-traits | website=Newmuseum.org | access-date=11 March 2017}} Her works are exhibited in several permanent art museum collections.
Life and career
Barbara Rossi was born in Chicago on September 20, 1940,{{cite book |last1=Fox |first1=Howard N. |title=Directions, Parts 62–979 |date=1979 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |pages=68 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0fDRmROdHTQC&q=barbara+rossi+1940 |access-date=29 August 2023}} and lived in Berwyn, Illinois. She received her Bachelor of Arts from St. Xavier College in 1964.{{cite web|last1=Rossi|first1=Barbara|title=Faculty Profiles|url=https://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/barbara-rossi/|website=Saic.edu|access-date=5 March 2016}} Before pursuing her career as an artist, she spent several years as a Catholic nun.
Rossi's drawing style began to emerge in 1967, while she was taking a course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She exhibited a drawing in the 1968 Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute of Chicago, and later that year, she entered the Master of Fine Arts program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1970. While there, she met other Imagist artists, and was soon exhibiting her work alongside theirs.{{cite news|last1=McCracken|first1=D.|title=Drawing Power: Barbara Rossi and Her Life with the Hairy Who|agency=ProQuest|publisher=Chicago Tribune|date=February 10, 1991|id={{ProQuest|283032674}}}} Rossi was awarded an artist's fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1972.{{cite book|title=Annual Report 1973|date=1973|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|location=Washington, D.C.|page=101|url=https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1973.pdf|access-date=11 March 2017}}
During the period of the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, Rossi's art dealt with themes of abstracted and stylized inner bodily awareness, and the media she used included painting on plexiglass, small drawings in graphite and colored pencil, quilts and quilt pictures. This more internally-focused work shifted to a more external viewpoint in the late 1970s, when she began representing situational images and whole figures. By the late 1970s, she also employed other media, painting on masonite and occasionally canvas. In 1983, Rossi started traveling to India and making elaborate colored pencil drawings with Persian and Indian themes.{{cite book|last1=Dennis|first1=Adrian|title=Barbara Rossi Selected Works: 1967-1990|date=1991|publisher=Renaissance Society|location=University of Chicago}} Rossi curated a traveling exhibition about Indian art, From the Ocean of Painting: A Survey of India's Popular Painting Traditions, 1589 A.D. to the Present and wrote the accompanying catalog.{{cite book|last1=Rossi|first1=Barbara|title=From the ocean of painting : India's popular paintings 1589 to the present : [based on an exhibition presented by the University of Iowa Museum of Art ... during 1994-95]|date=1998|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|location=New York [u.a.]|isbn=0195111931}}
Rossi described her technique as "drawing without a predetermined end,"{{Cite web|url=https://hyperallergic.com/245782/a-tantalizing-glimpse-into-the-world-of-barbara-rossi/|title=A Tantalizing Glimpse into the World of Barbara Rossi|website=Hyperallergic.com|date=18 October 2015}} intending her drawings to emerge one form at a time.{{Cite web|url=https://resources.depaul.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/Pages/barbara-rossi-poor-traits.aspx|title = Barbara Rossi: Poor Traits | Exhibitions | DePaul Art Museum | DePaul University, Chicago|website=Resources.depaul.edu}} Many people thought of Rossi's art as odd and grotesque{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}, and most of her paintings appear to be body parts from the inside out, often looking like knobs or folds of skin.{{Cite web|url=https://www.contemporaryartlibrary.org/project/barbara-rossi-at-new-museum-new-york-9338|title=Barbara Rossi at New Museum, New York|website=Contemporary Art Daily|access-date=29 August 2023}} Ken Johnson calls her paintings "X-rays revealing subdermal viscera," which he suggests resemble "churning inner souls".{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/arts/design/barbara-rossis-zany-vision-revisited.html?_r=1|title=Barbara Rossi's Zany Vision Revisited|newspaper=The New York Times|date=24 December 2015|last1=Johnson|first1=Ken}}
Rossi died on August 24, 2023, at the age of 82.{{Cite news |last=Greenberger |first=Alex |date=August 28, 2023 |title=Barbara Rossi, Chicago Imagist Who Painted with Humor and Wit, Dies at 83 |work=ARTnews |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/barbara-rossi-chicago-imagist-dead-1234677888/}}
Select exhibitions
- Barbara Rossi: Poor Traits. New Museum, New York (16 September 2015 - 3 January 2016)
- Meanwhile, in Lonesome Valley. Loudhailer Gallery, Los Angeles (20 June - 1 August 2015). Group exhibit.{{cite web|title=Barbara Rossi featured in group show, Meanwhile in Lonesome Valley at Loudhailer Gallery|url=http://www.corbettvsdempsey.com/2015/06/19/barbara-rossi-featured-group-show-meanwhile-lonesome-valley-loudhailer-gallery/|website=Corbettvsdempsey.com|access-date=5 March 2016|archive-date=8 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160108021126/http://www.corbettvsdempsey.com/2015/06/19/barbara-rossi-featured-group-show-meanwhile-lonesome-valley-loudhailer-gallery/|url-status=dead}}
- Barbara Rossi (21 April - 4 June 1995) Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University{{cite book|title=Barbara Rossi (exhibition brochure)|date=1995|publisher=Tarble Arts Center|location=Eastern Illinois University|page=1}}
- Barbara Rossi: Selected Works, 1967-1990 (13 January - 24 February 1991) Renaissance Society, University of Chicago
- Some Recent Art from Chicago. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (10 February - 2 March 1980). Group exhibit. Works exhibited: Viking Smoking (1970), Shep and Poor-Self Trait, (1970), Curls and Poor-Self Trait (1970), Quilt (Male of Sorrows) (1971), 3-D Do (1973){{cite book|last1=Keefe|first1=Katharine Lee|title=Some recent art from Chicago|date=1980|publisher=The Museum|location=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|pages=76–77}}
- Who Chicago? an exhibition of contemporary imagists. London (10 December - 25 January 1981). Group exhibit. Works exhibited: Poor Self Trait 3 (Curls) Diptych (1970), 3-D Do (1973, Shep Step II (1973), Fishing Picture (1975), Quick-n-Quack (1975), A Bark Drawing (1976), Waveland (1977), De Risen (1978){{cite book|last1=Knipe|first1=Tony|title=Who Chicago? : an exhibition of contemporary imagists|date=1980|publisher=Ceolfrith Gallery, Sunderland Arts Centre|location=Sunderland, England|isbn=0-904461-66-1|pages=212–213}}
- XII Bienal de São Paulo: Made In Chicago (1973–74) Museu de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil{{cite book|title=Catálogo da 12ª Bienal de São Paulo|date=1973|pages=102, 103, 105, 454|url=https://issuu.com/bienal/docs/namee1bdf4|access-date=6 March 2016}}
- Twenty-Fourth Illinois Invitational Exhibition (1971) Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL
- Seventy-First Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity (30 March - 12 May 1968) Art Institute of Chicago
Select permanent collections
- Art Institute of Chicago{{cite news|title=Rossi, Barbara {{!}} The Art Institute of Chicago|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Rossi%2C+Barbara|newspaper=The Art Institute of Chicago|access-date=11 March 2017|language=en}}
- Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin{{cite web|title=MMoCA Acquires the Bill McClain Collection of Chicago Imagism {{!}} MMoCA|url=http://www.mmoca.org/about-us/press-room/press-releases/2010/02/01|website=Mmoca.org|access-date=11 March 2017|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160629183428/http://www.mmoca.org/about-us/press-room/press-releases/2010/02/01|archive-date=29 June 2016|url-status=dead}}
- Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin{{cite web|title=Sea-n-Cipher {{!}} Milwaukee Art Museum|url=http://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=367|website=Collection.mam.org|access-date=11 March 2017}}
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago{{cite web|title=MCA – Artists: Barbara Rossi|url=https://mcachicago.org/Who-We-Are/Artists/Barbara-Rossi|website=Mcachicago.org|access-date=11 March 2017|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=June 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
- Museum of Modern Art, Vienna{{cite web|title=Barbara Rossi|url=https://www.mumok.at/en/barbara-rossi|website=Mumok.at|access-date=11 March 2017|language=en}}
- David and Alfred Smart Museum, the University of Chicago{{cite web|title=Collections - Smart Museum of Art - The University of Chicago|url=http://smartcollection.uchicago.edu/|website=Smartcollection.uchicago.edu|access-date=11 March 2017}}
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.{{cite web|title=Barbara Rossi {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=4151|website=Americanart.si.edu|access-date=11 March 2017|language=en}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://archive.renaissancesociety.org/site/Exhibitions/Intro.Barbara-Rossi-Selected-Works-19671990.64.html Mid-Career Retrospective]
- [https://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/barbara-rossi SAIC Faculty Bio]
- [http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Rossi,+Barbara Works in the Art Institute of Chicago]
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Category:20th-century American painters
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Category:21st-century American women painters
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