Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain

May 24 – July 13, 2016

Rick Bartow is a major American painter. He is also widely recognized as a significant West Coast, American Indian artist who has been an active painter, sculptor, and printmaker since the late 1970s. His art, though deeply personal, speaks to universal experiences and globally minded themes. Animals, self-portraits, and references to cultural traditions appear frequently. As a member of the Wiyot Tribe of Northern California, he has enjoyed a close lifelong relationship with the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians in his hometown of Newport, Oregon. He graduated in art from Western Oregon University in 1969 and then served in the Vietnam War (1969–71).  Internationally exhibited and collected, Bartow’s twenty-foot-high pair of sculptures, We Were Always Here, was installed next to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2012.

Charles Froelick, Mr. Bartow’s long time art dealer, will speak informally at the opening. He is a member of the National Council of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian as well as Board Chair of Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts. Bill Avery, an esteemed Bartow collector who has loaned many works to the exhibition, will also attend. Rick Bartow was born in 1946 and died on April 2, 2016.

Installation Images