Ellen Berkenblit

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




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