Bo Bartlett

Bo Bartlett (born December 29, 1955) is an American Realist painter working in Columbus, Georgia and Wheaton Island, Maine.

Bo Bartlett was born James William Bartlett III on December 29, 1955, in Columbus, Georgia.

Bartlett’s parents, Opal and Bill Bartlett (James William Bartlett Jr.), were from Columbus.

His father was a woodworker and furniture designer, and his mother was a medical librarian.

At the age of 18 he traveled to Florence, Italy where he studied mural painting under the American expatriate, Ben Long.

Following a long legacy of realist painters, Bartlett embarked on his career in the 1970s, at a time when the Art World embraced abstraction, conceptual art, and Minimalism.

Bartlett is guided in his work by a quote by Robertson Davies, “Let your root feed your crown.” To Bartlett this means to paint your life, to be true to your temperament in order to maintain truth and originality throughout one’s work.

While depicted in a grand, narrative style, the stories Bartlett tells are open-ended.

They celebrate the commonplace and personal.

The scenes Bartlett depicts are familiar – children dressed up on Halloween, two young women riding a bike, a man rowing on a sunny day – yet there is “an oddity about his works that creates psychological pause within the viewer.” The uncanny nature, the familiar yet dreamlike quality of Bartlett’s work shows the influence of Surrealists such as Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Giorgio De Chirico.

Bartlett often creates scenes that are highly improbable, but not entirely impossible.

In 1974 he returned to the United States and married.

He moved to Philadelphia in 1975.

He received a Certificate of Fine Art from PAFA in 1980.

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.

The influence of film is apparent in Bartlett’s work.

Cinematic scale, lighting, and narrative staging are important elements throughout his career.

Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision.

His paintings are inspired by American Realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Norman Rockwell, and Andrew Wyeth.

Bartlett’s experience in filmmaking led him to connect with Betsy Wyeth in 1992, to embark upon a film about the life and work of her husband, Andrew Wyeth.

The film collaboration marked the beginning of Bartlett's relationship with Wyeth as a lifelong friend.

Young Life, 78 x 108 inches, oil on linen, 1994, private collection on loan to Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA.

Young Life is a play on the painting, American Gothic, by Grant Wood.

The scene is depicts a young American family, posing after a successful hunt.

There is a darker undercurrent in the painting found in the mud splattered over the truck, the blood on the man’s pants, and the young boy mimicking the pose of the rifle-armed man.

Homeland, 134 x 204 inches, oil on linen, 1994, McCormick Place, Chicago.

Homeland references several historical paintings including Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Raft of the Medusa and Liberty Leading the People.

Snow Hill was completed in 1995.

Snow Hill received the CINE Golden Eagle Award, the Gold Apple Award from the National Educational Media Network Awards, Best Documentary from Hot Springs DFF, Best Biography from CINDY Awards, and Best Documentary from Philadelphia FVF.

Lifeboat, 80 x 100 inches, oil on linen, 1998, private collection, previously on loan to the Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA. Lifeboat is inspired by Winslow Homer’s The Fog Warning.

The man in the rowboat is dressed casually and the day is bright, yet he is surrounded by threats including a shark in the water and a large crashing wave.

In 2004, Bartlett traveled around the world before moving to Seattle, Washington, in 2005.

Bartlett studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

The American, 82 x 100 inches, oil on linen, 2016, Mennello Museum, Orlando, FL.

Bartlett has had numerous solo exhibitions nationally and internationally.

Solo exhibitions include:

He paints in the Grand Manner of academic painting of the 18th and 19th centuries, integrating figure painting, portraiture, landscape, and still life into his scenes.

During this period, he studied anatomy at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, mirroring the approach of the 19th century realist painter, Thomas Eakins.

During his time in Pennsylvania, Bartlett apprenticed under Nelson Shanks.