John Newsom is an American painter. Newsom was born in 1970 in Hutchinson, Kansas. Newsom is best known for combining multiple techniques of formal painting strategies onto large-scale canvases, featuring dynamic spectacles of the natural world. In 1992 he completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at The Rhode Island School of Design and subsequently moved to New York City, where he attended New York University’s studio arts program. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from NYU at the age of 24. Newsom has recently been the focus of several early-career survey exhibitions presented at notable institutions, including The Richard J. Massey Foundation for the Arts and Sciences in New York 2011-2012, as well as MANA Contemporary located in Jersey City, New Jersey - held in 2015. Published in a 2015 monograph of Newsom’s paintings, art critic Barry Schwabsky writes in his essay, “Beneath his thick and sensuous painted renderings of flora and fauna is a grappling with the giants of abstraction. What keeps ‘strong painting’ from becoming merely muscle bound - is Newsom’s secret weapon: the discipline that comes from considering himself, not a painter of images, but rather an abstractionist ... to appreciate his paintings is ... to engage with their surfaces of purely sensual incident.”
Newsom has exhibited extensively in The United States and Europe, as well as Japan. Articles and reviews of his work have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, and The New York Times, among other notable periodicals. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Hammer Museum, The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, The Neuberger Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery and The R.I.S.D. Museum.
b. 1970, Hutchinson, KS
Lives and Works in Brooklyn, NY
EDUCATION
1994 MFA, New York University, New York, NY
1992 BFA, The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Eye of the Beholder, Contra Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2018 Shangri-La, Brintz Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (catalogue)
2016 Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles, CA (two-artist exhibition with Rinus Van De Velde)
2015 MARC STRAUS, New York, NY Rogue Arena
MANA Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ (catalogue)
2013 Bestiary, MARC STRAUS, New York, NY
2011-12 Crescendo, The Richard J. Massey Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, New York, NY (catalogue)
2011 Nocturne Paintings, Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles, CA
Motifs and Methods, Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles, CA (East Gallery)
2009 Beyond the Horizon, Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles, CA (West Gallery)
Rebels and Raptors, Lattuada Gallery, Milan, Italy (catalogue)
2006 Allegory of Nations, Mike Weiss Gallery, New York, NY
2004 Black Widow Paintings, Mike Weiss Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)
Backyard Bliss, New Gallery / Them Andriola, Houston, TX
2002 New Paintings, Stefan Stux Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Recent Paintings, Leyendecker Gallery, Tenerife, Spain
Meeting Place, Silverstein Gallery, New York, NY
2000 Natural Selection, Margrett Gallery, New York, NY
1999 Brushfire, Bronwyn Keenan Gallery (project space), New York, NY
1998 Sanctuary (100 Bird Paintings), Greene Gallery, Geneva
1997 Recent Drawings, Earl McGrath Gallery, New York, NY
1996 Recent Paintings, 407 Gallery, New York, NY
New Work, Earl McGrath Gallery, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 EXPEDITION, The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), Vermont. (catalogue) (forthcoming)
2020 Grace in the Jungle, 8.Salon, Hamburg, Germany. (forthcoming) The Myth of Place in Spite of the Hand, Poti Space,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (forthcoming)
The Open World, Brintz Gallery, Palm Beach. (forthcoming)
2019 Original Copy, Alta Art Space, Mälmo, Sweden.
Think in Pictures (curated by the Animators of Paint and Friends), Amelchenko Gallery, New York (catalogue)
Groundwork, Contra Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2019 Flora, Brintz Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (catalogue)
2018 Rite of Passage, Vito Schnabel Projects, New York, NY
Points of Light in a Nocturnal World, 7 Herkimer Place, Brooklyn, New York, NY (catalogue)
2017 Back to the Shack (curated by André Butzer), Meliksetian | Briggs, Los Angeles, CA
Garden Party, Brintz Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (catalogue)
LOB DES SCHATTENS - DJ Piet Mondrian’s Sister in the Year 2849 - and her books (from Vienna) curated by DJ
Arnold Schoenberg and Rhianna, MARC STRAUS, New York, NY (catalogue)
2016 DER FUNKE SOLL IN DIR SEIN (curated by André Butzer), Salon Dahlmann, Berlin, Germany
Urban Dawn II, McCaig and Welles, Beirut, Lebanon
Sizing It Up: Scale in Nature and Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
2015 Late Harvest, The Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (catalogue)
The Hollow Bone (curated by Robert Banat), Ray Smith Studio, Brooklyn, NY
2014 Xigue-Xigue, MARC STRAUS, New York, NY
All the Best Artists are my Friends (curated by Ray Smith), MANA Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
2013 Prints & Paper, The Richard J. Massey Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, New York, NY
2012 ESTATE, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY
Ai Weiwei Humanitarian Award Exhibition, WhiteBox, New York, NY
PRINTED HISTORIES 16 Years of Print Portfolios at Exit Art, Exit Art, New York, NY
2011 An Instance of Vibration (curated by Peter Makebish), The Bowery Hotel, New York, NY
Outer Space, Exit Art, New York, NY
ART MANA FEST, The Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, Jersey City, NJ
2010 Exquisite Corpse Project (curated by David Salle), Gasser & Grunert Inc., New York, NY
Fire, Burning Rain (curated by Jihae Kim), Le Poisson Rouge Gallery, New York, NY
A Group Painting Show, Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles, CA (West Gallery)
Blood, Sweat and Tears, Leyendecker Gallery, Tenerife, Spain
In.flec.tion, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, NY (catalogue)
In Dialogue (curated by Peter Makebish), Anonymous Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)
Quick While Still, Part 2 (curated by Colin Huerter), Heist Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)
2009 Quick While Still, Part 1 (curated by Colin Huerter), Heist Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (catalogue)
2008 Pop-Auge und die ewigen Quatschkommonden Deutsche und Amerikanische Kunst seit
1999 (German and American Art since 1999) curated by André Butzer, Patrick Painter Inc., -
Los Angeles, CA (Melrose Gallery)
Faces and Figures (Revisited), Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, NY (catalogue)
2007 Size Matters: XXL - Recent Large Scale Paintings, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, -
New York Paradise (Robert Crumb, John Newsom, Peter Saul, and H.C. Westermann), Patrick Painter Inc., -
Los Angeles, CA (West Gallery)
Trance/Borders: Exit Art Print Portfolio, Exit Art, New York, NY (catalogue)
Pop Art 1960’s - 2000’s, Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki, Japan.
Traveled to The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and The Hachoiji Yune Art Museum, Japan (catalogue)
2005 Contemporary Voice: Contemporary American Art from The Misumi Collection, Tottori Perfectural Museum, -
Osaka, Japan (catalogue)
Hope, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY
MUSEUMS & PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, San Fransisco, CA
The Neuberger Museum of Art, Westchester County, NY
The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
The Francis Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, NY
The RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI
The Vera List Center, The New School, NY
The Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY
The Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State University, PA
The Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton, MA
The Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
The Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA
The Hampshire College Art Gallery, Amherst, MA
The University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMASS, Amherst, MA
The Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
The Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, University of California, Berkeley, CA
The Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
The Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
The Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
The Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY
The Historic Deerfield Museum, Worcester, MA
The Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, South Hadley, MA
The Mount Holyoke Art Museum, South Hadley, MA
The New York Public Library Print Collection, New York, NY
The Library of Congress Collection, Washington D.C.
The Tottori Prefectural Museum, Osaka, Japan
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2018 Graham, Betty Ann. John Newsom at Brintz Gallery, Modern Luxury Magazine (Palm Beach Edition), -
January issue, pp. 16&40
2017 Wagley, Catherine. ‘Back to the Shack’ at Meliksetian | Briggs, Contemporary Art Review .LA, September 12
‘Back to the Shack’ at Meliksetian | Briggs, Los Angeles, BLOUIN ARTINFO, September 11
2016 Tietjen, Alexa. Science and Art Collide at The New York Stem Cell Foundation’s Annual Gala, WWD, October 21
Simay, Doug. John Newsom at Patrick Painter, simayspace.com, August 15
John Newsom | Rinus Van de Velde at Patrick Painter, Santa Monica, Ex-Chamber Museum SeeSaa.net, July 2
John Newsom | Rinus Van de Velde at Patrick Painter, zingmagazine.com, July 2
John Newsom | Rinus Van de Velde at Patrick Painter, laartparty.com, July 2
2015 Barrow, Jerry. Raekwon Explains Getting Physical, Mystical & Artistical on FILA, WatchLOUD.com. -
Mastrangelo, Fernando. Meeting of the Minds, CULTURED Magazine, February/March, p. 20
Magdaleno, Johnny. Vivid Unexpected Collage Depictions of the Natural World, The New York Times, January 5
Painter John Newsom Takes Us Inside His “Rogue Arena”, Société Perrier, January 20
John Newsom: Rogue Arena, MANA Contemporary, ArtStack
2014 John Newsom in conversation with Tracey Emin, FLATT Magazine, Spring/ Summer issue, pp. 147-157
For Sigmar Polke: Alchemical Painting, by John Newsom. Flash Art Magazine, May-June. 2013
Francesco Clemente: Of An Historical Nature, by John Newsom. FLATT Magazine, Spring/Summer issue, pp. 51-60
2012 John Newsom: Profile, World of AERIN, June 25
John Newsom in conversation with Will Cotton, FLATT Magazine, Spring/ Summer issue, pp. 68-77
Marc and Livia Straus: Collectors, LUXE IMMO Magazine, Fall Issue, pp. 22-25
Jimenez, Luis. Art Does Dallas, WhiteHot Magazine, April
Luby, Abby. CIRCA 1986: A Tumultuous Time for the Arts, The Examiner Newspaper, July 15
2011 Robinson, Walter. Art Basel Miami Beach - More on Miami Art Week, Artnet, December
At Art Basel - Swimming in the Nudes, style.com, December 2
TOP 100 ARTISTS, Flash Art Magazine, November/December issue, pp. 50-51
Fashion News: Fresh Picks, The Wall Street Journal, November 26
Schwendener, Martha. The Complex 1980’s - Viewed by 47 Artists, The New York Times, November 4
John Newsom in conversation with André Butzer (cover story), Flash Art Magazine, Spring/Summer Issue, pp. 80-84
Trezzi, Nicola. John Newsom: Beyond the Horizon, FLATT Magazine, Spring Issue, pp. 92-97
John Newsom in conversation with Ross Bleckner, FLATT Magazine, Winter Issue
Roaming the Grounds: The Zeitgeist International Art Exhibition, Martin-GropiusBau Berlin 1982, -
by John Newsom. Flash Art Magazine, January/February Issue
2010 Smith, Steve. Remaking a Dark Tale, With Real-Life Notes, The New York Times, September 19
Haden-Guest, Anthony. Deck the Walls: the DJ as Curator, The Art Newspaper, April, p. 52
2009 Wise up to Owls, British Vogue, October Issue, p. 125
Talbot, Amanda. Fresh and Wild. ELLE Decoration UK Edition (cover), pp. 100-109
Simay, Doug. John Newsom at Patrick Painter, simayspace.com, June 27
Walsh, Daniella. Cover Story: Patrick Painter Does It His Own Way (with reproduction of ‘Resting Place’, -
2008, by John Newsom on the cover), Art + Living, Winter Issue, pp. 60-64
2008 John Newsom: Artist’s Profile for Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles (with reproduction of ‘For All Ages’, -
2007-08), Frieze Art fair Yearbook 2008-09, Frieze Art Fair - October 16-19, London, UK
The Armory Show Highlights, The Art Newspaper TV, March 28
2007 Morgan, Robert C. John Newsom: Allegory of Nations (with reproduction of ‘Shadowland’, -2005-06),-
The Brooklyn Rail, February Issue, p.55
Garbarino, Steve. We Got Ourselves A Live One! Painter John Newsom Has Bats (and Bugs) -
In His Belfry and That Makes Us Happy, BlackBook Magazine, December/January Issue, pp. 40-43
Sisco, Josh. Bullies Go Down! John Newsom Takes You to School, Glitterati Magazine, -
November/December Issue, pp. 26-27