Bo Bartlett
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Bo Bartlett (b. December 29, 1955 in Columbus, Georgia) is an
American realist painter currently residing on Vashon Island in
Washington State.
Bo Bartlett was born on December 29, 1955 in Columbus,
Georgia. At the age of 19 he traveled to Florence, Italy where
he studied under Ben Long. In 1975 he returned to the United
states, where he studied at the University of the Arts in
Philadelphia, and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He
also studied anatomy at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic
Medicine. During his time in Pennsylvania, Bartlett apprenticed
under Nelson Shanks. Bartlett then went on to study liberal arts
at the University of Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1981.
In 1986, Bartlett received a Certificate in Filmmaking from New
York University. This led him to embark upon the 5 year process
of creating a film in collaboration with Betsy Wyeth on the life
and works of her husband, Andrew Wyeth. The film, entitled Snow
Hill, began Bartlett's relationship with Wyeth as an artistic
mentor and life-long friend. Bo Bartlett currently lives and paints on an island off the
coast of Maine in summer, and on an island in the Puget Sound in
Washington through the winter. He is married to artist Betsy
Eby.
Bo Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision.
His paintings are 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 land and people to
describe 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 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.
His work can be found in private collections, public
collections, and galleries throughout the United States.
