For 40 years now, Ellen Berkenblit has been returning with stoic passion and meticulousness to the main protagonist of her paintings, a usually grim-looking female figure in profile. Berkenblit does not see herself as a storyteller or biographer of this figure. Instead, appearing in various constellations and scenarios, the figure serves the artist as a matrix of endless painterly possibilities, dissolving any dichotomy between figuration and abstraction in the process.
Ellen Berkenblit was born in 1958 in Paterson, New Jersey. She currently lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited across the USA, with her most recent solo exhibitions including Ellen Berkenblit: In Motion at the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque (2023), Norton at Anton Kern Gallery in New York (2023), Ellen Berkenblit: Other Shapes at Night at Vielmetter Los Angeles (2022), and Atrium Project: Ellen Berkenblit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2019). Berkenblit’s work is part of the public collections at MoMA, New York, the Brooklyn Museum, MOCA, Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2014, she was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
born in 1958 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA
lives and works in New York, USA
selected solo exhibitions
2024
Ellen Berkenblit: Process, Westport New York, USA
Ellen Berkenblit, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA
Flugelhorns, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
2023
Ellen Berkenblit: In Motion, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, USA
Norton, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA
2022
Ellen Berkenblit: Other Shapes at Night, Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA
Umberville, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, USA
2021
Ellen Berkenblit / Somaya Critchlow, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, USA
2020
Sistergarden, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA
2019
Ellen Berkenblit: Paintings, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, USA
Ellen Berkenblit, One Night Only, Dallas, USA
2018
The Clock Unlocked, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA
Lines Roar, The Drawing Center, New York, USA
Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium
2016
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, USA
2009
Re:Construction, Poster Project at 50 Trinity, New York, USA
2007
Suzanne Hilberry Gallery, Detroit, USA
2000
Charim Klocker Gallery, Vienna, Austria
Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA
1993
Galerie Hubert Klocker, Vienna, Austria
1992
TBA Gallery, Chicago, USA
White Columns, New York, USA
1984
Semaphore East, New York, USA
selected group exhibitions
2024
Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Others’ Covers, JUBG, Cologne, Germany
Meet me by the lake, C L E A R I N G, New York, USA
2023
Canned Heat, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
Perpetual Portrait, Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA
2022
Some Kind of Monster Roster, Analog Diary, Beacon, USA
Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, USA
2021
New Objectivity, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
Judith Linares: The Artist as Curator, Sarasota Museum, Ringling, USA
Peep Show, Anton Kern Gallery, WINDOW, New York, USA
Reflections / Human Nature, Gana Art, Seoul, South Korea
2019
Drawn Together Again, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA
True Blue Mirror: Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
The Other Self, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, Greece
Samaritans, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, New York, USA
2018
WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN / ELECTIVE AFFINITIES, Sammlung Friedrichshof, Austria
Line and Verse, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden
2017
Lyric on a Battlefield, Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA
Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, Hall Art Collection, Reading, USA
Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
2016
MCA DNA: Riot Grrrls, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA
IMAGINE, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
The Westreich/Wagner Collection, Whitney Museum, New York, USA (through 2016) traveling to Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2013
After Hours 2: Murals on the Bowery, Presented by the Art Production Fund & The New Museum,
New York, USA
American Treasures: Other Voices, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, USA
2011
Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Womens’ Lithographs from Tamarind, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA
NeoIntegrity, The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, New York, USA
2006
Ellen Berkenblit and Chris Caccamice, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2004
Affect, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville, USA
East Village, New Museum, New York, USA
Paint on Metal, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, USA
2002
Officina America, Galeria D’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy
2000
Drawing 2000, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA
Madison Avenue: Where Fashion Meets Art, Calypso, New York, USA
1999
Deutsche Bank, 15th Anniversary of the Artists Fellowship Program of the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, USA
1995
Berkenblit, Nares, Prince, Wool, Galleria Bonomo, Rome, Italy
1992
Good Work, The Cooper Union, New York, USA
The Anti-Masculine (Overlapping but not corresponding to the Feminine), Kim Light
Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1985
Comic Relief, Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas, USA
Double Vision, B-Side Gallery, and Frank Bernaducci Gallery, New York, USA
1984
Pop Symbolism, Center Gallery, Burknell University, Lewisburg, USA
East Village Artists, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA
1983
Emergence, Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York, USA