Ross Bleckner was born on May 12, 1949, in New York and grew up in the prosperous town of Hewlett Harbor on Long Island. The first art exhibition he saw—The Responsive Eye, a show of Op art on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965—had a strong impact upon him. He decided to become an artist when he was in college, studying with Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close at New York University, where he earned a B.A. in 1971. Two years later, he completed an M.F.A. at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he met David Salle. After moving back to New York, Bleckner purchased and moved into a Tribeca loft building in 1974. Painter Julian Schnabel rented out three floors of the building, and the Mudd Club, a nightclub frequented by musicians and artists, occupied space there from 1977 to 1983. (Bleckner sold the building in 2004.) Bleckner's first solo exhibition was held in 1975 at Cunningham Ward Gallery in New York. In 1979, he began his long association with Mary Boone Gallery in New York, which championed several of the so-called art stars of the 1980s. In 1981, Bleckner met Thomas Ammann, an important Swiss dealer who went on to collect his work. Bleckner's early 1980s Stripe paintings, which pay homage to the work of Bridget Riley, were not particularly well received by critics. His atmospheric Weather series (1983) followed. In 1984, Bleckner's art attracted a burst of attention when he had a single large painting on view at Nature Morte in the East Village. Around this time, he was painting canvases he viewed as memorials, in which candelabras, vases, chandeliers, and rococo motifs seem to float against dark grounds. This imagery was in part a response to the AIDS crisis. Later paintings also manifest his sense of loss stemming from the disease. Some paintings, such as 8,122+ as of January 1986 (1986), bear titles reflecting the number who had died of AIDS to date; others are commemorative works dedicated to individuals; still others employ patterns of dots to suggest the lesions produced by AIDS-related sarcomas. In the following years, Bleckner commenced his Constellation paintings (1987–93), suggestive of night skies, and the Architecture of the Sky canvases (1988–93), which call to mind domed interiors. In the early 1990s, he made his first Cell paintings, which make reference to diseased human cells. From that time, he has continued to paint apects of the body viewed at the microscopic level, including forms related to DNA and cancer cells, the latter in response to his father's unsuccessful battle with the disease. He has also created a series of bird paintings (1995–2003) and experimented with varied surfaces as well as the use of an airbrush. In 1993, Bleckner bought a property formerly belonging to Truman Capote in Sagaponack, Long Island. Bleckner's first solo museum exhibition was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1988. His work has since been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including a midcareer retrospective organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1995. He has been represented in many group exhibitions devoted to abstraction, among other themes, as well as the Whitney Biennial (1975, 1987, and 1989), Biennale of Sydney (1988), and Carnegie International (1988). He continues to live and work in New York and Sagaponack.

C.V.

2021 Heart in the corner of the room, Petzel Gallery
Paralipsis, MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY 

2020 Ross Bleckner, 'Quid Pro Quo', Capitain Petzel

2019 How to Survive the Present, ALLOUCHE BENIAS
Pharmaceutria, Petzel Gallery

2018 Ross Bleckner, W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher
Ross Bleckner, W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher
Time of Disquiet, MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY
Time of Disquiet, MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY

2017 Ross Bleckner: New Paintings & Works on Paper, Meyerovich Gallery

2016 Ross Bleckner: Flowers - Works on Paper from the 1990's, Meyerovich Gallery
Ross Bleckner: Forever Overhead, Leila Heller Gallery

2014 Ross Bleckner - Black Bird Brain, MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY
Ross Bleckner, Mary Boone Gallery

2010 Mary Boone Gallery, NYC, NY. (solo)

2008 East Coast Perspectives, Imago Galleries

2008 The 30th Anniversary, PART II, Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm

2008 Genesis - Die Kunst der Schopfung, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

2008 Empires and Environments, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA

2008 Expenditure, The Busan Biennale, Busan

2008 Genesis - Die Kunst der Schopfung, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

2008 Empires and Environments, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA

2007 Black and White and Red - All Over, Michele Mosko Fine Art, Denver, CO

2007 All the More Real: Portrayals of Intimacy and Empathy, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY

2007 Timer 01, Triennale Bovisa, Milan

2007 Speed #1 - natura naturata - velocidad sin movimiento, IVAM - Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Valencia

2007 Cais gallery, Seoul, Korea (solo)

2007 Ross Bleckner - Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich (solo)

2007 I Love My Scene 3, Mary Boone Gallery, New York (solo)

2006 Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki (aolo)

2006 View Nine: I Love My Scene / Scene 3. Mary Boone Gallery, NY, USA

2005 Picturing America. Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Nagasaki, Japan

2005 Prefectural Art Museum, Nagasaki, Japan

2005 Zoo Story. Fisher Landau Center for Art. Long Island City, New York, USA

2005 East Village USA, New Museum of Contemporary Art

2005 Galerie Ruzicska, Salzburg, Austria (solo)

2004 Perspectives at 25, Contemporary Arts Museum. Houston

2004 Birdspace: A Post-Audubon Artist's Aviary, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York

2004 Cultivating Landscape, Scott White Contemporary Art, San Diego

2004 Dialogue with Space, Esbjerg Art Museum, Denmark

2004 Flowers, Mary Boone Gallery, New York

2004 Flowers Observed, Flowers Transformed, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2003 Mary Boone Gallery, New York

2003 Lehmann Maupin, New York (solo)

2003 Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, Colorado (solo)

2003 New Abstract Painting Painting Abstract Now, Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen

2002 Studio d'Arte Raffaelli, Trento (solo)

2002 Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm (solo)

2002 Alain Noirhomme Gallery, Brussels (solo)

2002 Guild Hall Collects: Artists of Hampton Bohemia, Guild Hall Museum, New York

2002 Skin to Bones. Painting Since 1970, Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, Waltham

2002 Mary Boone Gallery, New York

2002 Self and Soul: The Architecture of Intimacy, Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina, USA

2002 Church of San Giorgio in Poggiale, Bologna, Italy

2001 Operativo, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City

2001 Wilma Tolksdorf Gallery, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (solo)

2001 Galleria in Arco, Turin, Italy and Galleria Raffaelli, Trento, Italy (solo)

2001 Mary Boone Gallery, New York (solo)

2001 Absolut Modern, Modern Art Museum Fort Worth

2001 Mythic Proportions. Painting in the 1980s, Museum of Contemporary Art Miami

2001 Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons. Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

2001 Roundup, El Paso Museum of Art

2000 Art at Work. Forty Years of the Chase Manhattan Collection, Queens Museum of Art New York

2000 In the Power of Painting, Moderna Museet, Stockholm / Alesco, Zurich (cat.)

2000 On Canvas. Contemporary Painting, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

2000 Vaknin Schwartz Gallery, Atlanta (solo)

2000 Victoria Miro gallery, England (solo)

2000 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta (solo)

2000 Rebecca Camhi Gallery, Athens, Greece (solo)

2000 Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland (solo)

2000 Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston (solo)

2000 Lococo Mulder Fine Art, Germany (solo)

2000 Interim Art, London (solo)

2000 Wetterling Teo, Singapore (solo)

2000 Works in Light, Galerie Beyler, Germany

2000 Drawings 2000, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York

1999 Emiliomazzoli, Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea Modena, Italy

1999 Welterling Gallery Kungstradgarden 3, Stockholm, Belgium (solo)

1999 Martin Browne Fine Art Sydney (cat.) (solo)

1999 The Storytellers, Itochu Gallery, Japan

1999 Botanica: Contemporary Art and the World of Plants, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Duluth Duluth, ME

1998 Puntos Cardinales, Museo Alejandro Otero Caracas, Venezuela

1998 Paper Thin, Stephen Wirtz Gallery San Francisco, CA

1998 Julie M. Gallery Tel Aviv

1998 Lehmann Maupin New York, NY

1998 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1998 Glenn Horowitz Bookseller East Hampton, NY

1998 Ross Bleckner: The Last Decade, Patrick Painter Santa Monica, CA

1998 Galerie Aglutinador Havana, Cuba

1997 Bawag Foundation Vienna, Austria

1997 Galerie Larsen Stockholm, Belgium

1997 Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot Paris, France

1997 Galerie Daniel Templon Paris, France

1997 Robert McClain & Company Houston, TX

1997 Galleri Larsen Stockholm, Belgium

1997 Turner & Runyon Gallery Dallas, TX

1997 A Reversal of Scale, Turner & Runyon Gallery Dallas, TX

1997 Ross Bleckner, Mark Francis, Leigh Martin, Mervyn Williams, GOW Langsford Auckland, New Zealand

1997 Intimate Universe (Revisited), Robert Steele Gallery New York, NY

1997 Identity Crisis: Self-Portraiture at the End of the Century, Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee, WI

1997 Table Tops: Morandi's Still Life's to Mapplethorpe's Flower Studies, California Center for the Arts Museum Escondido, CA

1997 Birth of the Cool: American Painting, Kunsthaus Zürich Zürich, Germany

1997 After the Fall: Aspects of Abstract Painting since 1970, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art Snug Harbor, Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY

1996 Blind Spot: The First Four Years, Paolo Baldacci Gallery New York, NY

1996 The Modern Landscape, Queens Library Gallery Jamaica, NY

1996 Nuevas Abstracciones, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain

1996 On Paper II, Schmidt Contemporary Art Saint Louis, MO

1996 Painting-Singular Object, The National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto, Japan

1996 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1996 Galleria S.A.L.E.S. Rome, Italy

1996 Larry Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills, CA

1996 Galerie Kyoko Chirathivar Bangkok, Thailand

1996 Baldwin Gallery Aspen, CO

1995 University Art Gallery University of CA, San Diego, La Jolla, CA

1995 Rebecca Camhi Gallery Athens

1995 Off Shore Gallery East Hampton, NY

1995 I.V.A.M., Centre Julio Gonzalez Valencia, CA

1995 Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst Oslo, Norway

1995 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, NY

1995 Mario Diacono Gallery Boston, MA

1995 Barbara Davis Gallery Houston, TX

1995 Passions Privees, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Paris, France

1995 Ross Bleckner, Peter Cain, Judith Eisler, Jack Pierson, Juan Usle, Christopher Wool, Galleri K Oslo, Norway

1995 American Interiors, Knoedler & Company New York, NY

1995 New York Abstract, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, LA

1995 Making a Mark: Drawings of the 1980s, The Bruce Museum Greenwich, CT

1995 Critiques of Pure Abstraction, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery University of Houston, Houston, TX

1995 In a Different Light, University Art Museum, University of California Berkeley, CA

1994 Painting, Nina Freudenheim Gallery Buffalo, NY

1994 Desire, Charles Cowles Gallery New York, NY

1994 Abstract Works on Paper, Robert Miller Gallery New York, NY

1994 Painting and Sculpture: recent Aquisitions, The Museum of Modern Art New York, NY

1994 30 Years-Art in the Present Tense, The Aldrich Museum of Modern Art New York, NY

1994 Inaugural Group Show, Off Shore Gallery East Hampton, NY

1994 Absence, Activism and the Body Politic, Fishbach Gallery New York, NY

1994 Against All Odds: The Healing Powers of Art, The Ueno Royal Museum Tokyo, Japan

1994 The Inward Eye: Ross Bleckner, Richmond Burton, Julian Lethbridge, Laura Carpenter Fine Art Santa Fe, NM

1994 Isn't It Romantic?, On Crosby Street New York, NY

1994 From Media to Metaphor: Art About AIDS, Grey Art Gallery, New York University New York, NY

1994 New York on Paper, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris, France

1994 Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot Paris, France

1994 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1994 Turner & Byrne Gallery Dallas, TX

1994 Galeria Soledad Lorenzo Madrid, Spain

1993 Kohn Abrams Gallery Los Angeles, CA

1993 Guild Hall Museum East Hampton, NY

1993 Galerie Max Hetzler Köln, Germany

1993 Galerie 56 Budapest, Hungary

1993 Baumgartner Galleries Washington, D.C.

1993 Jason Rubell Gallery Miami Beach, FL

1993 New York on Paper, Galerie Ernst Beyeler Basel, Switzerland

1993 Italy-America Abstraction Redefined, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna San Marino, Italy

1993 Extravagant: The Economy of Elegance, Tony Shafrazi Gallery New York, NY

1993 I am the Enunciator, Thread Waxing Space New York, NY

1993 Intimate Universe, Nina Freudenheim Gallery New York, NY

1992 Intimate Universe, Michael Walls Gallery New York, NY

1992 Transmodern, Baumgartner Galleries Washington, D.C.

1992 Slow Art: Painting in New York Now, P.S. 1 Museum Long Island City, NY

1992 Then and Now, Phillippe Staib Gallery New York, NY

1992 Contemporary Masterworks, Feigen Gallery Chicago, IL

1992 Theoretically Yours, Chiesa di San Lorenzo di Aosta Italy

1992 Recent Abstract Painting, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art Cleveland, OH

1992 A Passion for Art: Watercolors and Works on Paper, Tony Shafrazi Gallery New York, NY

1992 Easel Painting, Perry Rubenstein Gallery New York, NY

1992 The City Influence: Ross Bleckner, Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker, Museum of Contemporary Art Wright State University, Dayton, OH

1992 Devils on the Stairs: Looking Back on the Eighties, Newport Harbor Art Museum Newport Beach, CA

1992 Galerie Samia Saouma Paris, France

1992 Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot Paris, France

1991 Jason Rubell Gallery Palm Beach, FL

1991 Fred Hoffman Gallery Santa Monica, CA

1991 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1991 Moderna Museet Stockholm, Belgium

1991 Devils on the Stairs: Looking Back on the Eighties, Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, PA

1991 The New Abstraction, Sidney Janis Gallery New York, NY

1991 Outrageous Desire, Rutgers University Rutgers, NJ

1991 Anni 80: Aristi a New York, Palazzo delle Albere Trento, Italy

1991 La Metafiscia della Luce, John Good Gallery New York, NY

1991 From Media to Metaphore: Art About AIDS, Independent Curators Incorporated New York, NY

1991 Nayland Blake, Ross Bleckner, Donald Moffatt, Simon Watson Gallery New York, NY

1991 Metropolis, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, Germany

1991 Mitto y Magia en America: Los Ochenta, Museo de arte contemporaneo de Monterrey Monterrey, Mexico

1991 Who Framed Modern Art or the Quantitative Life of Roger Rabbit, Sidney Janis Gallery New York, NY

1991 Weitersehen, Museum Haus Esters and Museum Haus Lange Krefeld, Germany

1991 Inconsolable, Louver Gallery New York, NY

1991 The Last Decade: American Artists of the 80s, Tony Shafrazi Gallery New York, NY

1991 Token Gestures (A Painting Show), Scott Hanson Gallery New York, NY

1991 10 + 10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters, Tsentralnyi Zystavochnyi Zal Leningrad, USSR

1990 10 + 10. Contemporary Soviet and American Painters, Milwaukee Art Museum

1990 Kölnischer Kunstverein Köln, Germany

1990 Kunsthalle Zürich Zürich, Switzerland

1990 Heland Wetterling Gallery Stockholm, Belgium

1990 Galeria Soledad Lorenzo Madrid, Spain

1990 Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, Canada

1989 Akira Ikeda Gallery Nagoya, Japan

1989 Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburgh, PA

1989 Contemporary Art Museum Houston, TX

1989 Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee, WI

1989 Mario Diacono Gallery Boston, MA

1989 Galerie Max Hetler Köln, Germany

1989 The Silent Baroque, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg, Austria

1989 Re-presenting the 80s, Simon Watson Gallery New York, NY

1989 Viennese divan: Sigmund Freud Nowadays, Museum of the 20th Century Vienna, Austria

1989 Prospect 89, Frankfurt Kunstverein and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany

1989 1989 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY

1989 Pre-Pop Post-Appropriation, Stux Gallery New York, NY

1989 Epiphanies, Edward Thorp Gallery New York, NY

1988 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburg, PA

1988 Hybrid Neutral: Modes of Abstraction and the Social, Independent Curators Incorporated New York, NY

1988 The Binational/Die Binationale, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Germany

1988 The Image of Abstraction, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, CA

1988 Biennial of Sydney, Biennial of Sydney Sydney, Australia

1988 Art at the End of the Social, The Rooseum Malmö (cat.)

1988 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1988 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, CA

1988 Waddington Galleries London, England

1987 Margo Leavin Gallery Los Angeles, CA

1987 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1987 Fall Invitational, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield, CT

1987 Armitage Ballet Benefit, Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1987 Ronald Greenburg Gallery Saint Louis, MO

1987 The Ironic Sublime, Galerie Albrecht Munich, Germany

1987 Post-Abstract Abstraction, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield, CT

1987 Awards in the Visual Arts 6, Grey Art Gallery New York, NY

1987 1987 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY

1987 Still Life, Beyond Tradition, Visual Arts Museum New York, NY

1987 Atelier Conversations, John Good Gallery New York, NY

1987 The Antique Future, Massimo Audiello Gallery New York, NY

1986 Intuitive Line, Hirschl & Adler Modern New York, NY

1986 Landscapes, Luhring, Augustine and Hodes Gallery New York, NY

1986 Emerging Artists 1986, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art Cleveland, OH

1986 End Game: Reference and Simulation in Recent American Painting and Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA

1986 Paravision II, Margo Leavin Gallery Los Angles, CA

1986 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1986 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1986 Mario Diacono Gallery Boston, MA

1985 Boston Museum School Boston, MA

1985 From Organism to Architecture, New York Studio School New York, NY

1985 Abstract Painting Redefined, Louis K. Meisel Gallery New York, NY

1985 Group Drawing Show, New York Studio School New York, NY

1985 Cult and Decorum, Tibor de Nagy Gallery New York, NY

1985 Vernacular Abstraction, Wacoal Art Center Tokyo, Japan

1985 Paravision, Postmasters Gallery New York, NY

1985 Final Love, Cash/Newhouse New York, NY

1984 Still Life with Transaction II: Former Objects, New Moral Arrangements, and the History of Surfaces, Galerie Jurka Amsterdam, The Netherlands

1984 Sex, Cable Gallery New York, NY

1984 Natural Genre, Florida State University Gallery and Museum Tallahassee, FL

1984 Personal Views, Janus Gallery Los Angeles, CA

1984 The Innovative Landscape, Holly Solomon Gallery New York, NY

1984 Still Life with Transaction: Former Objects, New Moral Arrangements, and the History of Surfaces, International with Monument Gallery New York, NY

1984 Civilization and the Landscape of Discontent, Nature Morte Gallery New York, NY

1984 The Meditative Surface, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago Chicago, IL

1984 Newscapes-Land and City/States of Mind, One Penn Plaza New York, NY

1984 Modern Expressionists, Sidney Janis Gallery New York, NY

1984 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1984 Nature Morte Gallery New York, NY

1983 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1983 Science Fiction, John Weber Gallery New York, NY

1983 Mary Boone and Her Artists, Seibu Gallery Tokyo, Japan

1983 Contemporary Light, Katherine Markel Gallery New York, NY

1983 Selected Drawings, Jersey City Museum Jersey City, NJ

1983 Drawing It Out, Baskerville + Watson Gallery New York, NY

1982 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1982 Portico Row Gallery Philadelphia, PA

1982 Patrick Verelist Galerie Antwerpen, Belgium

1981 New York in Black and White, The Museum of Modern Art/Penthouse New York, NY

1981 Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, California Institute of the Arts Valencia, CA

1981 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1980 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1980 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1980 Nouva Immagine, Milan, Italy

1979 Four Artists, Hallwalls Buffalo, NY

1979 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1979 New Painting/New York, Hayward Gallery London, England

1979 Mary Boone Gallery New York, NY

1978 University Gallery of Fine Arts Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

1977 Cunningham Ward Gallery New York, NY

1976 John Doyle Gallery Chicago, IL

1976 New Work/New York, Fine Arts Gallery California State University, Los Angeles, CA

1976 Recent Work, The Johnson Gallery Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT

1975 Selected Works: New York, Meadow Brook Art Gallery Oakland University, Rochester, MI

1975 John Doyle Gallery Chicago, IL

1975 Paula Cooper Gallery New York, NY

1975 Contemporary Reflections, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield, CT

1975 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY

1975 Cunningham Ward Gallery New York, NY