Jake Berthot Art

Art Sz: 20"H x 18"W Frame Sz: 23 1/2"H x 21 1/2"W Signed and dated to verso 'J Berthot 85' Provenance: Private Collection Acquired in 1988 from the Nielsen Gallery 179 Newbury Street Boston, MA. Jake Berthot (1939–2014) was an American artist whose abstract paintings contained elements of both the minimalist and expressionist styles. During the first 36 years of his career his paintings were entirely non-figurative. His style changed in 1995 when he moved his studio from New York City to a rural community in upstate New York. While continuing to be abstract his paintings thereafter contained figurative elements and were seen to have greater emotional content. Throughout his career his work frequently appeared in solo and group exhibitions in both commercial and public galleries. It has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art, and other major American art museums. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981 and a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1983. During the 1980s Berthot continued to show at the McKee Gallery. He also showed at the Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, in 1987 and the Nielson Gallery, Boston, in 1998 and 2000. During this time his work continued to appear in museum exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art. The Museum of Modern Art included works by Berthot in "New Works on Paper" (1981), "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture" (1984), and "Contrasts of Form: Geometric Abstract Art, 1910-1980" (1985). His work was also included in exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum (1984), the galleries of Muhlenberg and Lafayette colleges (1984), Mandeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego (1986), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1987). In 1988 he was given a retrospective exhibition at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University. Until about 2004 he continued to be represented by the McKee Gallery and thereafter by the Betty Cunningham Gallery which, since his death, has also represented his estate. Museum exhibitions from the early 1990s include: "Slow Art: Painting in New York Now" at P.S.1, Long Island City, New York (1992), "Square Painting/Plane Painting at the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington (1997), "Jake Berthot" at the Phillips Collection...