Katherine Bradford
New York-based Katherine Bradford paints luminous fields of color peopled with characters in action or in repose. Often they are swimming, flying, or floating. Bradford paints with a formal inventiveness and a shifting sense of figure and ground, giving narrative weight to her figures who may appear as heroes or lovers, families or couples, or isolated individuals. Her chromatic scenes, painted in many transparent layers of acrylic, transmit a light-filled quality and offer metaphorical possibilities for issues such as gender and universal humanity. Bradford is represented by Canada in New York and has had recent solo shows in Tokyo, Berlin, Milan, London and Paris. Her work is included in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art among others.
Bradford was born in 1942 in New York City and attended Byrn Mawr College (B.A.) and Purchase College (MFA). She is represented in New York by CANADA, in Berlin by Phillipp Haverkampf, in Portland, Oregon by Adams and Ollman, in Paris and London by Campoli Presti and in Maine by Caldbeck Gallery. In 2011 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Joan Mitchel Foundation Award in 2012. Other awards include a Pollock Krasner Grant and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Bradford was a resident faculty member at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2009) and in 2016-2017 was Senior critic at the Yale School of Art in New Haven.
Education
BA Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
MFA State University of New York, Purchase, NY
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS (2020~)
2024 Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (forthcoming)
Kaufmann Repetto, Milan, Italy (forthcoming)
Sky Swimmers, Kunsthalle Emden, Emden, Germany
Gertrude Stein and Superman, Haverkampf, Leistenschneider Gallery, Berlin, Germany
American Odyssey, Halle für Kunst Graz, Graz, Austria
2023 Flying Woman: The Paintings of Katherine Bradford, The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Arms and the Sea, CANADA, New York, NY
Fear of Shoes, Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Derneberg, Germany
Les saltimbanques, Campoli Presti, Paris, France
2022 Flying Woman: The Paintings of Katherine Bradford, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Katherine Bradford and Sedrick Chisom, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, CA
Angels to Some, Demons to Others, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, CA
Night Swimmers, Tomio Koyama, Tokyo, Japan
Shell Seekers, Canada East Hampton, East Hampton, Long Island, NY
2021 Diedrick Brackens and Katherine Bradford, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, MA
Philosopher’s Clambake, Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT
Lifeguards, kaufmann repetto, Milan, Italy
Mother Paintings, Canada, New York, NY
2020 Mother Joins the Circus, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
AWARDS
2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant
2011 Guggenheim Fellowship
American Academy of Arts and Letters Award
2005 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award
2000 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Orlando, FL
The George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL
Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Portland Museum, Portland, ME
Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, MA
Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
Bates College Museum, Lewiston, ME
Bowdoin College Museum, Brunswick, ME
Smith College Museum, Northampton, MA
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
The Menil Drawing Foundation, Houston TX
AVAILABLE WORKS
