WASHINGTON, DC—This spring, The Phillips Collection showcases some of the most celebrated works by contemporary American artist Jennifer Bartlett (1941–2022) from her ambitious In the Garden series, exploring the artist’s dialogue with gardens and nature throughout her practice. Bringing together 14 paintings and works on paper made between 1980 and 1983, Jennifer Bartlett: In and Out of the Garden will be on view from February 10–April 30, 2024.
“The Phillips is renowned for its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, and so it is especially fitting that we should present an exhibition of work by Jennifer Bartlett, who frequently referenced these historical styles in her art,” says Vradenburg Director and CEO Jonathan P. Binstock. “We are delighted to present this focused exhibition of Bartlett’s In the Garden series, which highlights the artist’s extraordinary talent and contributions as a painter and also the continuing relevance of the art historical traditions that inspired her.”
Jennifer Bartlett emerged in the mid-1970s to become one of the leading American artists of her time and was among the first female painters of her generation to be both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. In the winter of 1979–80, Bartlett stayed in the home of British novelist Piers Paul Read, a rented house with a small, run-down garden in Nice, France. Bartlett’s time there became the inspiration for an ambitious series of almost 200 freehand drawings of the villa’s garden which she later titled In the Garden.
Drawing several views of the same scene, Bartlett employed numerous techniques, styles, and media, including pencil, charcoal, ink, Conté crayon, watercolor, pastel, and gouache, evoking the styles of artists throughout art history, particularly those of Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Bonnard, Miró, and Picasso. After returning to New York and presenting the works on paper at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1981, Bartlett embarked on a series of monumental paintings that experimented with serial perspectives and created psychologically charged re-imaginings of the garden. In and Out of the Garden presents a selection of these later paintings alongside drawings made in Nice.
“Bartlett’s reinvention of figurative painting in the 1970s and 80s was characterized by an unprecedented intellectual and visual acuity,” says Klaus Ottmann, The Phillips Collection’s Chief Curator Emeritus. “Alongside her work Rhapsody from 1975–76, In the Garden is one of Bartlett’s most important bodies of work. Bartlett continued to move emphatically from abstraction to figuration, from minimalist rigor to maximalist exuberance, and her early works mark a key point in the development of her practice.”
Jennifer Bartlett: In and Out of the Garden was originally conceived as an exhibition in 2020 that would bring together work by Jennifer Bartlett and French artist Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) to explore the two artists’ creative dialogue with gardens and nature. The project could not be realized because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Newly conceived as a focused solo presentation, Jennifer Bartlett: In and Out of the Garden serves as a fertile complement to the landscape paintings that will be featured among other celebrated works in a concurrent major exhibition on Pierre Bonnard.
Co-organized by The Phillips Collection and Kimbell Art Museum, Bonnard’s Worlds is on view March 2 through June 2, 2024. Barlett and Bonnard were avid gardeners, and gardens—especially the ones they created for themselves—had a lifelong influence on both artists’ works. Bartlett’s garden scenes drew inspiration from her stay in Nice, not far from Bonnard’s home in Le Cannet, France. Bartlett’s In the Garden series provides a fascinating counterpoint to works by Bonnard, two painters for whom gardens not only evoked joy but also intense feeling. These vibrant spring exhibitions provide a window into the important role of the garden as an enduring subject in contemporary art.
