Ross Bleckner, born in 1949 in New York, first studied at New York University with the artists Sol Lewitt and Chuck Close, and then at the California Institute of the Arts, where he received his MA in 1973. Bleckner began exhibiting with the Mary Boone Gallery in 1979 and was the subject of a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1995. His works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington. D.C., the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. He is best known for his paintings that deal with loss and memory. With them, he primarily tackled the emotional toll brought about by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. "Life is short. Life goes fast," he said. "And what I really want to do in my life is to bring something new, something beautiful, and something full of light into the world." His poetic works often use repeated symbolic images such as candelabra, doves and flowers rendered with a blurred, glowing sense of light.
Sources of photographs: Petzel, Robert Banat, Widewalls
1949
Born on May 12th in New York, USA.
1971-1973
He graduated in fine arts (B.F.A) from New York University, and two years later completed a master's degree in fine arts (M.F.A) at the California Institute of the Arts.
1975
First solo exhibition at Cunningham Ward Gallery in New York.
1995
At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a major retrospective of his works from the last two decades of exhibitions at renowned institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Carnegie Museum of Art. To this day, he is considered the youngest artist to receive a retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim.
2009
Bleckner published a book of his theoretical artistic statements entitled Examined Life: Writings, 1972-2007, published by Edgewise Press.
2009
In May 2009, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) awarded Bleckner the title of Goodwill Ambassador. He was the first fine artist to receive this position.
