Bo Bartlett

Bo Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are well within the tradition of American realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America’s heart—its land and its people—and describes the beauty he finds in everyday life. His paintings celebrate the underlying epic nature of the commonplace and the personal significance of the extraordinary.

Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged. He pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. Life, death, passage, memory, and confrontation coexist easily in his world. Family and friends are the cast of characters that appear in his dreamlike narrative works. Although the scenes are set around his childhood home in Georgia, his island summer home in Maine, his home in Pennsylvania or the surroundings of his studio and residence in Washington state, they represent a deeper, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home.

--Tom Butler, excerpt from the book Bo Bartlett, Heartland

Chronology

1955

Born in Columbus, Georgia

1974

Private studies with Ben F. Long IV, Florence, Italy

1975

University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1976-81

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Certificate of Fine Art

1977-78

Private studies with Nelson Shanks, Andalusia, Pennsylvania

1977-78

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, anatomy studies

1980-81

University of Pennsylvania, Liberal Arts Studies

1986

New York University, Certificate in Filmmaking

Awards

2005 Ursinus College Distinguished Artist Award1994 PEW Fellowship in the Arts1987 Philadelphia Museum of Art Award

1981 Benjamin Lanard Memorial Award, South Street Art Supply Prize

Purchase Prize, Eastern Pennsylvania Regional Drawing Competition, Beaver College, Glenside, PA

Museum Merit Award, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA

1980 First Thouron Prize

William Emlen Cresson Traveling Scholarship, PAFA

Consolidated/Drake Press Award

Eleanor Grey Still Life Prize

1979 Cecelia Beaux Memorial Portrait Prize

First Purchase Award, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA

1978 Charles Toppan Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

1977 Packard Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA