Artist Statement

Ira Barkoff became fascinated with landscape painting from the time his parents took him to the Catskills in the summers, where he painted his first landscape at an early age. “When I was ten years old…and looking up at a blue sky with fast moving cotton ball clouds. I thought, ‘I have to remember the sky…remember every single cloud.’”

Although not known to him at the time, the Catskill Mountains were the stamping ground of the Hudson River School of landscape painters led by Thomas Cole in the nineteenth century. It was the kind of painting that depended upon a quiet observation of fact, to be sure, but in its celebration of nature, it touched on the romantic as well. Barkoff began with a quiet observation of fact, but soon a more romantic sensibility emerged in which the expression of his ideas was based more on memory and imagination. “My landscapes,” he said, “are not literal depictions of New England…but are distillations of visual / emotional memories.”

Barkoff’s influences range from Rembrandt (especially the great pen and ink drawings) to J.M.W. Turner’s late unfinished paintings. John Constable’s studies of clouds, the poetic subjectivity of Twachtman’s landscapes and Monet’s Water Lily Series, to name just a few. He admires the attitude of Caspar David Friedrich and the color of Van Gogh. Later, he embraced the gestural painting of Richard Diebenkorn and William Dekooning, and more recently the premier coup paintings of Edwin Dickinson (1891-1978).

Working in his studio in natural light, Barkoff paints to music – usually opera, sometimes Chopin, which, he says helps put him “in the zone,” to keep to his romantic point of view.

Yet, despite his habit of working from imagination and memory, Barkoff’s landscapes still manage to evoke an extraordinary sense of place and if many of his landscapes are painted en premier coup, they evoke an extraordinary stability and presence. In addition, he has transformed his influences into something entirely his own. It is clearly apparent that here is a lyric artist who has created memorable images and possesses a quiet originality, quietly achieved.

From an essay by Richard Boyle, Art Historian

Biography

Education

Art Students League, NYC, NY studied with Robert Brackman and Robert Beverly Hale
B.F.A. Pratt Institute, NYC, NY
Teaching at Washington Art Association, CT from 1996 – current
Juror for the Ruth Chenven Foundation, NY 2000, 2001, 2002

Exhibitions: One Person

2007 Ober Gallery, Kent, CT
2005 Claudia Heath Fine Arts, Charlotte, NC
2005 Walker-Kornbluth Gallery, Fairlawn, NJ
2005 Gallery du Soleil, Tarrytown, NY
2004 Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, Lenox, MA
2004 Morrison Gallery, Kent, CT
2003 Morrison Gallery, Kent, CT
2002 Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, Lenox, MA
2001 Norfolk Library, Norfolk, CT
1999 New London Art Society, New London, CT
1999 Berkshire Art Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
1997 Sharon Town Hall, Sharon, CT
1996 Good News Café, Woodbury, CT
1996 Washington Art Association, Washington, CT
1995 CT Commission on the Arts – Hartford Showcase
1994 Legacy Art, Miami, FL
1991 Clapp and Tuttle Gallery, Woodbury, CT
1990 Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, NY
Cornwall Library Association, Cornwall, CT
1989 Francesca Anderson Gallery, Boston, MA
Oliver Wolcott Library, Litchfield, CT
1986 Durham Ziff Gallery, NYC, NY
Moviehouse Studio Gallery, Millerton, NY
1984 Durham Ziff Gallery, NYC, NY
1983 The Gallery at Harlem Valley, Wingdale, NY
1982 Durham Ziff Gallery, NYC, NY
Somerstown Gallery, Somers, NY

Juried Exhibitions

1998 Three Rivers Art Festival, Pittsburgh, PA
Judge: Sheena Wagstaff, Director of Collections – Frick Museum, NYC, NY
1994 First Street Gallery, NYC, NY, National Competition juried by Wayne Thiebau
1993 Art of Northeast USA, Silvermine juror, Eliza Rathbone, Curator – Phillips Collection
1991 Aetna Gallery, Hartford, CT, Curated show “Realism”
1989 Stamford Museum, Stamford, CT juried by Kenworth Moffet, former curator of Twentieth
Century Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Group Exhibitions

2006 Cavalier Gallery, Greenwich, CT
Ober Gallery, Kent, CT
Gallery du Soleil, Tarrytown, NY
Munson Gallery, Chatham, MA
Brick Walk Gallery, West Harford, CT
Claudia Heath Fine Art, Charlotte, MA
Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, Lenox, MA
2005 Hoorn-Ashby Gallery, NYC, NY
City Lights Gallery, Bridgeport, CT (3 person)
Munson Gallery, Chatham, MA
Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Cavalier Gallery, Greenwich, CT
Kaller Fine Art, Bethesda, MD
Gallery du Soleil, Tarrytown, NY
2004 Cavalier Gallery, NYC, NY and Greenwich, CT
Munson Gallery, Chatham, MA (2 person)
Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
2003 Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA (3 person)
Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, Lenox, MA
Munson gallery, Chatham, MA
Cavalier Gallery, Greenwich, CT
2002 New York Paris Kent Gallery, Kent, CT
Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Cavalier Gallery, Greenwich, CT
2001 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent, CT (3 person)
Riester/Greenberrg Gallery, New Preston, CT (3 person)
Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, Lenox, MA
2000 Cavalier Gallery, Greenwich, CT
1995 CT Commission on he Arts showcase, Hartford, CT (2 person)
Silo Gallery, New Milford, CT
1994 Linda McAdoo Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1993 Birdsnest Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME
1992 Grand Central Gallery “Romantic Realism” Show, NYC, NY
Hillsdale College “Romantic Realism” Show, Hillsdale, MI
Harris Gallery, Cornwall, CT
1991 Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, NY
1990 Anna Howard Gallery, Washington Depot, CT
1988 Oliver Wolcott Library, Litchfield, CT
1987 Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, NY
Ellen/Baker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1884 Mussavi Art Center, NYC, NY
1983 Gregg Galleries, National Arts Club, NYC, NY
1981 Martha Whitt Gallery, Louisville, KY

Selected Collections

New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT
Still Mountain Center, Kent, CT
American Home Products, NYC, NY
Pfizer Corporation, NYC, NY
Phoenix Home Life Insurance, Hartford, CT
Dawes Music, NYC, NY
Anda/Scottie, NYC, NY
Durham Ziff Collection, NYC, NY
Five Points Gallery Collection, East Chatham, NY
Alan Greenspan, former Chairman, Federal Reserve, Washington DC
John Gillis, Architect, NYC, NY

 

Bibliography

1. Joan Mitchell Blumenthal, American Artist, March 1973
2. Frank Merkling, “The Colors of Late Spring”, The News Times, May 24, 1983
3. Herbert S. Whitman, “Painting Cornwall”, The Lakeville Journal, June 18, 1987
4. Herbert S. Whitman, “Barkoff in Millerton”, The Lakeville Journal, July 10, 1986
5. Marilu Knode, “Diversity at Mussavi”, Manhattan Arts, June 1984
6. Claude LeSuer “Mussavi’s Antidote to Official Chic”, Art/Speak, NYC June 16, 1984
7. Herbert S. Whitman, The Lakeville Journal and Millerton News, May 10, 1990
8. JoAnna Arnett, Art Ideas, Spring 1995 (photo only)
9. Allistair Haight, Litchfield County Times, February 23, 1996
10. Best of Oil Painting, Rockport Publishing, Rockport MA, June 1996
11. William Zimmer, Review, Sunday New York Times, August 19, 2001
12. Richard J. Boyle, The Owl, Norfolk Library, “The Paintings of Ira Barkoff” May 2001
13. Asa Fitch, “Colors of Cornwall”, The Litchfield County Times, August 2003
14. Virginia Reiser, The Munson Gallery, Cape Arts Review Annual Issue 2004
15. Jamie Ferris, “Landscapes of Imagination”, Housatonic Living, October1, 2004
16. “Painted Poetry – Portrait of Ira Barkoff”, Artis Magazine, 2005
17. Phyllis Boros, “The New Landscape”, Connecticut Post, 2005
18. Susan Barnett, “The Artist in Transition: Ira Barkoff and the Art of the Subconscious”, Country
and Abroad Magazine, May 2007
19. Laurel Tuohy, “The Landscape of the Imagination”, LCT Magazine, Litchfield County Times,
June 2007
20. Marsden Epworth, “New Works”, Compass, The Lakeville Journal, June 7, 2007
21. Richard J. Boyle, “Ira Barkoff - Contemporary Romantic”, May 2007