Description

Short description: More than 120 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints will be on view in “Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain,” a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) at the University of Oregon. Long description: More than 120 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints will be on view in “Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain,” a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) at the University of Oregon. Rick Bartow (1946–2016), one of the nation’s most prominent contemporary Native American artists, was a member of the Wiyot tribe of Northern California and had close ties with the Siletz community. He graduated in 1969 from Western Oregon University with a degree in secondary arts education and served in the Vietnam War (1969–1971). His work is permanently held in more than 60 public institutions in the United States, including Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut; Brooklyn Museum, New York; and Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts. He has had 35 solo museum exhibitions and his art has been referenced in more than 250 books, catalogs and articles. In 2012, commissioned by The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Bartow created “We Were Always Here,” a monumental pair of sculptures, more than 20 feet high, which was installed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Personal experiences, literature and art from around the globe informed Bartow’s art. Throughout his career, he consistently explored self-portraiture and animal imagery, often blurring the lines between the two; many describe his work as transformational and visual storytelling.