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Artist Nell Painter
art by Nell Painter: detail from Princeton Self-portrait, 2015, charcoal on paper
Epigraph Eyes-Small Intense,
detail of Princeton Self-portrait, 2015, charcoal on paper, 10" x 8"

2023 Art

“DeSantis’ Dearth of Understanding of America’s Past Fails Everyone in the Present”
– Nell Painter's New Essay for Why MacDowell Now? series

“DeSantis’ Dearth of Understanding of America’s Past Fails Everyone in the Present.” Madam Chairman of the MacDowell Board, Fellow, and author Nell Painter identifies the recent efforts to censor history as a repetition of the past in a new essay on macdowell.org.

Nell Painter: Art Can Prevail Over DeSantis’s Campaign Against History. “Here we are again,” she writes, “ace to face with powerful attempts to push Black Americans – our experiences, our struggles, and our thoughts – out of the American consciousness.”

But, she continues, “the struggle to be heard and seen will also continue. Art will play its part in this process, for art’s reach is not so easily censored. MacDowell artists, like all artists, remain part of this story.”

MacDowell Fellow, historian, and author Nell Painter. (Dwight Carter photo) Thinkers who have been excised from the College Board’s Black Studies AP course. Professor Colette Gaiter listed these deleted thinkers in a recent Instagram post.
  

Philip Roth commemorative poster, 2023

Commemorative poster for the 2023 Philip Roth Festival in Newark,
digital collage, 24" x 18" in an edition of 150.

art by Nell Painter:  Philip Roth commemorative poster
Philip Roth commemorative poster, 2023


2022 Art

William Still Triptych, Brodsky Center at PAFA, 2022

William Still Triptych, 2022, 3 panels in an edition of 10, each panel 27 5/8" x 22 1/4"
BC/PAFA NP(c) 2022 Nell Painter/the Brodsky Center at PAFA.

art by Nell Painter:  William Still Triptych 1
William Still Triptych 1, 2022

art by Nell Painter:  William Still Triptych 2
William Still Triptych 2, 2022

art by Nell Painter: William Still Triptych 3
William Still Triptych 3, 2022


Arrived New Names 2, 2022

art by Nell Painter:  Arrived New Names 2
Arrived New Names 2, 2022
hand-colored lino print in ink on Bristol Vellum, 12" x 9 5/8"

Nell Irvin Painter: Historian/Writer/Artist – The Artful Mind magazine

Nell is interviewed by Harryet Candee for The Artful Mind magazine, “Nell Irvin Painter: Historian/Writer/Artist.” (link to downloadable pdf of article on our website) or online issue at issuu.com. October 2022 issue. Print.

Harryet Candee noted in her introduction: “This past summer, Linda Mussman, Co-Founder of Time & Space Limited in Hudson, New York, introduced me to Nell at the TSL Gallery. It was there I caught her in a very energized state of mind, busily sorting through and uncovering art work that was to be hung the same day for her opening ‘A Million Nells: Heedless Self Portraits Over the Years.’ Nell's work will be on view through October 9, 2022.” The article is illustrated with 11 images of Nell's art.

Artful Mind magazine article title
  

2021 Art

Nell Painter and Black Power in Print – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Nell is interviewed online by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (video): In this virtual discussion, originally hosted live by the MFA’s Contemporaries Curators Circle, scholar and artist Nell Painter speaks with curators from the Museum’s Department of Contemporary Art about "Black Power in Print." ("Black Power in Print" is an on-line project—a collaboration between the MFA and MoMA—examing the Black Power movement’s legacy in visual culture.) November 15, 2021.

Black Power in Print, Nell Painter, MFA Boston Nell Painter, screen shot from MFA video
  

I Knit Socks for Adrienne, 2021

Published online in March 2021 issue of Hoosac Journal 7.

Last year of 2020 was a once in a lifetime for me—probably for you, too, though you’ll probably be around in this world longer than I. Such upheaval! so much death and suffering, and in the nationwide, worldwide demonstrations against racist violence and White supremacy, for me, hope. All of this piled up together over the course of the year changed my art. Some of it became more political and talky, as in American Whiteness Since Trump made in February-March, and From Slavery to Freedom made in June. Even with the hopefulness, I was so exhausted that by the end of 2020, my art came out in a new way. Still with drawings, still with text. But newly confessional.

I Knit Socks for Adrienne is the most personally declarative piece of art I have ever made, more personal, even, than self-portraits, precisely because it is personally declarative in words that wrench the artist Nell Painter out of the closet as a knitter. For a long time I stayed closeted as a knitter. I thought, Let you see me as an artist, as an historian, as an artist who uses history, not let you see me as a knitter: a crafts-woman, an old lady sitting around with her needles and yarn. That mental image wasn’t one I had been able to expose.

But 2020 opened my closet door to reveal me knitting to hold myself together. There was all the death, searing painful deaths by the hundreds of thousands, especially of Black people. There was economic want. There was hunger. There was hope, in the hundreds of thousands of Americans in the streets calling down racism, denouncing White supremacy, declaring Black Lives Matter, roughing up, tearing down monuments to the Confederacy. The dead scared me. The demonstrators made me feel safer in the USA than ever before.

Even so, by Thanksgiving I had been away from home, away from Newark, for more than eight months, a coronavirus refugee in the far North Country of New York State, and missing my Newark people as I knitted—yes, to hold myself together. I knit socks for my husband; I knit socks for myself, and reaching across the miles to touch my friend in Newark, I knit socks for my Newark friend Adrienne. This piece in three panels shows self-portraits and, in the third, Adrienne’s mural on McCarter Highway in Newark.

art by Nell Painter:  I Knit Socks for Adrienne
I Knit Socks for Adrienne, 2021,
Panel 1, self-portrait
  
  
art by Nell Painter:  I Knit Socks for Adrienne
I Knit Socks for Adrienne, 2021,
Panel 2, self-portrait
  
  
art by Nell Painter:  I Knit Socks for Adrienne
I Knit Socks for Adrienne, 2021,
Panel 3, includes Adrienne’s mural on McCarter Highway in Newark
  
  

2020 Art

American Whiteness Since Trump, 2020

Nell's artist book American Whiteness Since Trump is on display at James Fuentes Online gallery. This series of 28 pieces (ink, graphite, and collage on paper) was created while Painter was in residence at the Bogliasco Foundation, Italy in February–March 2020.

American Whiteness Since Trump, cover
American Whiteness Since Trump, cover (1 of 28), 2020,
ink, graphite, and collage on paper, each each 8.5" x 6.25". This artist book, a series of 28 pieces, is on display at James Fuentes Online gallery.  

From Slavery to Freedom, 2020

This is a series of 15 drawings, each 8.5" x 5.5", commissioned by Emma Wilcox for Aferro Gallery in Newark. (View larger images here.)
The piece is on the Aferro Gallery website here: https://aferro.org/nell-painter/

From Slavery to Freedom, cover   From Slavery to Freedom, page 1   From Slavery to Freedom, page 2
From Slavery to Freedom, page 3   From Slavery to Freedom, page 4   From Slavery to Freedom, page 5
From Slavery to Freedom, page 6   From Slavery to Freedom, page 7   From Slavery to Freedom, page 8
From Slavery to Freedom, page 9   From Slavery to Freedom, page 10   From Slavery to Freedom, page 11
From Slavery to Freedom, page 12   From Slavery to Freedom, page 13   From Slavery to Freedom, page 14
From Slavery to Freedom, 2020,
ink and collage on paper, digitally manipulated, a series of 15 drawings each 8.5" x 5.5",
commissioned by Emma Wilcox for Aferro Gallery in Newark.  

2020 Art Events and Writings

A profile on Nell by Sammy Gibbons for northjersey.com (part of the USA Today network), “It's never too late: Why this successful NJ historian changed career paths in her late 60s” Published Dec. 14, 2020.


Nell is interviewed by Lauren O'Neill-Butler for the on-line publication November, “Nell Painter—In conversation with Lauren O'Neill-Butler,” November Magazine, No. 5. The interview took place September 2020. (novembermag.com is a publication of interviews with thinkers about art, politics, media, architecture, and philosophy).


My Coronavirus OccupationNell's essay on making art and writing during the coronavirus.

"Coronavirus came to occupy my art in Fondazione Bogliasco’s villa above the Ligurian Sea where I was in an artist’s residency between mid-February and mid-March of this year. My husband Glenn accompanied me in this Italian world contrasting so sharply with the dense woods of land-locked rural New Hampshire that I savor at MacDowell.

My project was an artist’s book, a visualization of my research on the history of white people in the U.S. today. When I started drawing Trump, I was in a sumptuous library beside floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of leather-bound complete editions of classic French authors. Gentle portraits of Bogliasco founders on the library’s walls encouraged and surveilled me as I revisited the shock of Trump’s campaign and the ugly white nationalist rhetoric that made him a sensation."  [read more on macdowellcolony.org]  [pdf]


MacDowellNell Painter Appointed Chair of MacDowell Colony Board of Directors, January 2020. Nell is the MacDowell’s new chairman of the board (here is the McDowell news release).

MacDowell is located in Peterborough, NH, and is one the nation’s leading contemporary arts organizations. MacDowell’s mission to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.

“The challenge of following the singular eloquence of Michael Chabon as MacDowell chairman gives me pause. But as the first ‘madam chairman’ I relish the prospect of representing MacDowell and its far-flung Fellows,” Painter said. “I want to thank the board and staff for their support and trust as I step into this role, and, as a recent Fellow, I want also to thank them for creating a space where I could not only do my work in peace, but also slough off the burden of tokenism. I look forward to helping advance the MacDowell mission in an effort to provide this same gift for many more artists in the years to come.”

“Nell Painter has formidable gifts, and one of the most remarkable minds on the American scene,” said Chabon. “She is a powerhouse, and all of us at MacDowell feel fortunate and grateful to have her in our community.”

MacDowell awards more than 300 competitive Fellowships to artists working in seven disciplines each year. While at MacDowell, Fellows are provided a private studio, accommodations, and three meals a day for a period of up to eight weeks. Nell is a two-time MacDowell Fellow (2016, 2019). Here is a link to Nell's Artist page at MacDowell’s website. Also on MacDowell’s website, here is Nell's essay “At MacDowell with James Baldwin, to Stop and Do Nothing In Order to Start Anew.”

(Since Nell's appointment, MacDowell dropped the word "colony" from its name to continue efforts to eliminate barriers to participation.)

2019 Art Events

Nell is interviewed in the Boston Review: "The Historian’s Art", Jonathan M. Square, Walter Johnson, Nell Painter. Jonathan M. Square, the curator of Nell's 2 recent exhibits at Harvard University, introduces the conversation between Nell and Walter Johnson (Harvard historian and Nell’s former student) that took place at the opening of the exhibitions. (posted January 6, 2020)

Nell Painter's solo art exhibits at Harvard University from October through November 2019:Freedom from Truth – Self-Portraits of Nell Painter”, was held in the Arts Wing of the Smith Center; and “Odalisque Atlas: White History as Told Through Art” was a satellite show at the Center for Government and International Studies, and focused on her cartographic work. Both exhibits of her art were curated by History and Literature Lecturer Jonathan Square.

Freedom from Truth – Self-Portraits of Nell Painter, solo show at Harvard University October-November 2019

Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University, view through gallery door rt by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University, Chapter Revised Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University, "The History of White People" Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University
Nell's solo art exhibit at Harvard University from October through November 2019: “Freedom from Truth – Self-Portraits of Nell Painter” includes (top row, 2nd from left) Chapter Revised, 2006, manuscript page, fabric, and thread on paper, 12" x 9"; (top row, 3rd from left) “The History of White People” by Nell Painter, 2019, paper and digital collage on foam core (also see image below in 2019 art).

Also see below for these and other self-portraits by Nell: 2017 Art2014-2015 Art2013 ArtSelf-portrait Series, 2010.

Odalisque Atlas – White History as Told Through Art. Nell Painter solo show at Harvard University October-November 2019

Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University, 2019: Odalisque Atlas – White History as Told Through Art Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Harvard University, 2019: Odalisque Atlas – White History as Told Through Art
Odalisque Atlas – White History as Told Through Art: an additional Nell Painter solo show at Harvard University October-November 2019

Also see below for these and other images in the Odalisque series: Black Sea Composite Maps, 2012.

In The Nation, Nell Painter reviews Mary Schmidt Campbell's book on the radical times and life of Romare Bearden, An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden. “Constant Evolution – Romare Bearden’s art” by Nell Painter (The Nation, Books & Art, September 9-16, 2019 issue) (pdf download)


Black and White: A Visual Dialogue—Exhibit at The Box, Express Newark

Nell's art is at The Box: "Black and White: A Visual Dialogue", showing at The Box, Express Newark (an exhibition space by The Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University) May 8—June 8, 2019. This 3-person show, in collaboration with Women in Media-Newark, includes works by Nell Painter, Dominique Duroseau, and Grace Lynne Haynes; curated by Gladys Barker Grauer and Adrienne Wheeler.

Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at The Box, Express Newark: gallery wall Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at The Box, Express Newark: The History of White People by Nell Painter Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at The Box, Express Newark: gallery door, art Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at The Box, Express Newark: gallery entrance Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at The Box, Express Newark: gallery wall through door
Nell's artwork at The Box include a sketch for an opera backdrop "WEB/Booker T." Opera, Southern Scene 2, 2017 (see full art images below in 2017 art). This studio-produced-sketch is a digital paper collage of 8-1/2" x 11" sheets taped together to create a 6 ft. x 8 ft. piece of art. The opera was produced by Trilogy Opera Company in Newark, NJ, with subject matter based on W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Also on exhibit is Nell's “The History of White People” by Nell Painter, 2019, paper and digital collage on foam core (see image below in 2019 art).

Process and Practice—Exhibit at Gallery Aferro

Nell's art is at Gallery Aferro: "Process and Practice", April 6—May 25, 2019. This group show, curated by Evonne M. Davis, honors the Aferro Studios Residency Program, bringing together past and current residents in this exhibition.

Art by Nell Painter on exhibit at Gallery Aferro: WEB/Booker T. City Scene,  opera backdrop
On exhibit at Gallery Aferro is another of Nell's opera backdrops: "WEB/Booker T." Opera, City Scene, 2017 (see full art images below in 2017 art). This studio-produced-sketch is a digital paper collage of 8-1/2" x 11" sheets taped together to create a 6 ft. x 8 ft. piece of art. The opera was produced by Trilogy Opera Company in Newark, NJ, with subject matter based on W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

"You Say" Prints Exhibited at the Smith College Museum of Art

"You Say" Prints Exhibited at the Smith College Museum of Art
Nell Painter's You Say This Can't Really Be America (2017) prints (see larger images below) exhibited at the Smith College Museum of Art, spring 2019.

Paul Robeson Portrait Exhibit at Zimmerli Art Museum

Paul Robeson Activist Portraits of Paul Robeson exhibit, NJTV image Portraits of Paul Robeson, Paul Robeson Activist by Nell Painter, Rutgers Today image
Nell Painter's Paul Robeson Activist (2018) is one of 6 portraits (3rd from right in center photo, see larger images below) on exhibit at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University, February-April 2019. Here is a link to a NJTV News video on the exhibit (aired Feb. 15, 2019), and here is an article about the Zimmerli exhibit in Rutgers Today.

2018 Art Events

Nell published an art review of “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” in the New York Review Daily, in two parts:

Brodsky Center Series Acquired by Additional Museum

Nell's series "You Say This Can't Really Be America," made at the Brodsky Center in 2017, has been acquired by a second museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, after the Smith College Art Museum.


2019 Art

“The History of White People” by Nell Painter, 2019

As I pack up to launch the French edition of my book The History of White People, my book is very much on my mind as a product of my own enunciation. This piece shows text from the English language edition of The History of White People and my mouth(s) as the speaker of those phrases.

art by Nell Painter: "The History of White People", 2019, 
paper and digital collage on foam core, 37 1/2" x 60"
“The History of White People” by Nell Painter, 2019,
paper and digital collage on foam core, 37 1/2" x 60"

2018 Art

Swampy Land by the River Don, 2018

August 2018: Time for me to sit down and finally make some art after two months on the road promoting my new book, Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over. Ah! A return to the simple enjoyment of making images. Let me go back to line and color and the joy of mark-making on paper.

Rummaging through my archive of images, I found an old map from my research at the Beinecke Library at Yale in 2012, when I was painting my Odalisque Atlas series. In 2018 I just liked the way it looked, this 18th-century map of a section of the Don River in Russia. It was the appearance of the thing that attracted me. I made a little 7" x 5" lino print and colored about a dozen by hand using ink, acrylic, and collage. I had a very good time.

After I colored my lino prints, I checked into the history just out of curiosity. I can never get very far from my love of history. And it turns out my prints have quite a back story with relevance beyond the Black Sea.

A centuries old, major commercial route, the Don River in Russia ends at the port of Azov (also called Tana) on the northern part of the Black Sea known as the Sea of Azov. For many centuries before 1900, the principal export through the port of Azov was live merchandise supplied by Cossacks.

Cossacks captured their live merchandise by harvesting the steppe. Harvesting the steppe? This was raiding the peasants of the steppe between Poland, Ukraine, and Russia for people to sell to the rich eastern Mediterranean, especially to the Ottomans. But it wasn’t just Cossacks in this kind of business.

If you know anything about the Atlantic slave trade, you’ll recognize this business model. Harvesting the steppe for live merchandise was exactly the kind of raiding that delivered millions of hapless African peasants into the Atlantic slave trade, where ports along the west coast of Africa played the part of Azov/Tana with the Atlantic Ocean as the Black Sea.

  
Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.1 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.2 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.3
Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.4 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.5 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.6
Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.7 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.8 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.9
Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.10 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.11 Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.12
Swampy Land by the River Don hand colored 2.13
Swampy Land by the River Don, 2018,
hand-colored lino prints, ink and collage on paper, 8" x 7"
  
  

Année Infâme, 2018

Annee Infame 1 Annee Infame 2
Annee Infame 3 Annee Infame 4
Annee Infame 5 Annee Infame 6
Année Infâme, 2018
stamp work on paper, 9" x 12"
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Paul Robeson Activist, oil stick, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 48" x 24"
Paul Robeson Activist, 2018
oil stick, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 48" x 24"
Is on exhibit at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University,
February-April 2019
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Paul Robeson Activist, detail oil stick, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 48" x 24"
Paul Robeson Activist, 2018, detail
oil stick, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 48" x 24"
  
  
Portraits of Paul Robeson exhibit, NJTV image
Portraits of Paul Robeson (including Nell's Paul Robeson Activist, 3rd from right) is on exhibit at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University, February-April 2019. Here is a link to a NJTV News video on the exhibit (aired Feb. 15, 2019).
  
  
Portraits of Paul Robeson, Paul Robeson Activist by Nell Painter, Rutgers Today image
Nell's "Paul Robeson Activist", above, is on exhibit at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University, February-April 2019 as part of Portraits of Paul Robeson. Here is an article about the Zimmerli exhibit in Rutgers Today.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Thadious Davis Celebration Drawing, 2018, graphite, collage, and digital collage on paper, 11 x 17
Thadious Davis Celebration Drawing, 2018,
graphite, collage, and digital collage on paper, 11" x 17"

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2017 Art

  
art by Nell Painter: 1. You Say Worst Thing Ever, Part 1 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America art by Nell Painter: 2. America Too, Part 2 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America
art by Nell Painter: 3. You Say Never Seen Anything, Part 3 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America art by Nell Painter: 4. The America I Know, Part 4 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America
art by Nell Painter: 5. You Say Can't Really be America, Part 5 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America art by Nell Painter: 6. I Know from History, Part 6 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America
art by Nell Painter: 7. You Say Isn't Really America, Part 7 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America art by Nell Painter: 8. Look South Look West, Part 8 of 8 of You Say This Can't Really Be America
You Say This Can't Really Be America, 2017, digital and silkscreen print on Sunset Cotton etching paper. Eight parts, 17" x 17" each (all eight parts shown above). Edition of 10. Published by Brodsky Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Collaborating master printer Randy Hemminghaus.
  
  
Display of work by Nell Painter produced and shown at the Brodsky Center
Installation view of three works by Nell Painter, published by the Brodsky Center, (from left): Wise Woman Inside, You Say This Can't Really Be America, and Wise Woman Disappears.

You Say This Can't Really Be America, 2017, digital and silkscreen print on Sunset Cotton Etching paper, eight parts, 17 x 17 inches each, edition of 10, published by Brodsky Center, collaborating master printer Randy Hemminghaus. Installation view, E/AB Fair, New York, NY, October 26–29, 2017. Photograph courtesy of Brodsky Center, copyright Nell Painter and Brodsky Center. Photograph by Jennifer Lorenz.

  
  
art by Nell Painter: What Do You Say About That?, 2017, linoleum cut and relief print on Sekishu white paper
What Do You Say About That?, 2017, linoleum cut and relief print on Sekishu white paper. Two parts, 17" x 30" overall. Edition of 10. Published by Brodsky Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Collaborating master printer Randy Hemminghaus.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Wise Woman Inside, 2017. relief and silkscreen print on Sekishu white paper, 17 x 17 inches
Wise Woman Inside, 2017. relief and silkscreen print on Sekishu white paper, 17" x 17". Edition of 10. Published by Brodsky Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Collaborating master printer Randy Hemminghaus.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Wise Woman Disappears, 2017, woodcut and polymer relief print on Sekishu white paper
Wise Woman Disappears, 2017, woodcut and polymer relief print on Sekishu white paper, 2 parts, 24" x 36" overall. Edition of 10. Published by Brodsky Center, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Collaborating master printer Randy Hemminghaus.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Nell Painter 3 (Wise Woman), 2017
Nell Painter 3 (Wise Woman), 2017.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: Douglas Symmetrical Blue with Locke, 2015
Douglas Symmetrical Blue with Locke, 2017, 12" x 12"
  
  
art by Nell Painter: "WEB/Booker T." Opera, City Scene, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop
"WEB/Booker T." Opera, City Scene, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop, digital paper collage, 6 ft. x 8 ft. Opera produced by Trilogy Opera Company in Newark, NJ, subject matter based on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
  
art by Nell Painter: "WEB/Booker T." Opera, Southern Scene 2, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop
"WEB/Booker T." Opera, Southern Scene 2, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop, digital paper collage, 6 ft. x 8 ft. Opera produced by Trilogy Opera Company in Newark, NJ, subject matter based on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
  
  
art by Nell Painter: "WEB/Booker T." Opera, Southern Scene 1, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop
"WEB/Booker T." Opera, Southern Scene 1, 2017, sketch for opera backdrop, digital paper collage, 6 ft. x 8 ft. Opera produced by Trilogy Opera Company in Newark, NJ, subject matter based on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
  
  

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2016 Art

Motherwell Series, 2016

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Slideshows

Art History by Nell Painter Volume 28, 2015

Art History by Nell Painter Volume 27, 2014


For more links to Nell Painter's art, please also see:

Nell's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/nell.painter    Link to Nell on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nellpainter/    Twitter icon with link to https://twitter.com/PainterNell

 

Read about Nell's Art Events
Including Articles and Interviews (by year)

2020     2019     2018     2017      2014      2013     2012      2011      2009


 

View Nell's Art (by year produced)

2020     2019     2018     2017     2015-2014     2013     2012     2011     2010     2009-2010     2009     2008


2015-2014 Art

Art History by Nell Painter Volume 28 2015 (slideshow)
Front Cover 09 2015 Square
Art History by Nell Painter Volume 27 2014 (slideshow)
Baskervill Front Cover
Princeton Self-portrait 2015, charcoal on paper, 10" x 8", 2015
art by Nell Painter: Princeton Self-portrait 2015, charcoal on paper, 10" x 8", 2015
Douglas Inverted Colored 2 in Vol. 28, 2015
art by Nell Painter: Nell Painter 1, Similar to Douglas Inverted Colored 2 in Vol. 28, 2015
With Arms Lopped Off, 2014, collage on paper, unique image, 5" x 5"
art by Nell Painter: With Arms Lopped Off, 2014, collage on paper, unique image, 5” x 5”
NO self-portrait 3, Digital self-portrait by Nell Painter, 2014
Digital  self-portrait by Nell Painter, 2014

2013 Art

Bathroom Book for Meena, 2013, collage on paper, 6” x 39”
image of Bathroom Book for Meena, 2013, collage on paper, 6 x 39”

Digital self-portrait, 2013, digital image on paper, 19” x 13”
Digital self-portrait, 2013
CWCW User 86 Profile Image, 2013, digital collage on paper, 12” x 12”
CWCW User 86 Profile Image, 2013, digital collage on paper

CRC images, 2013, digital images, dimensions vary


Beloveds, 2013, digital collages on paper, each 5-1/2" x 5-1/2”


Art History Volume XXVII by Nell Painter, Ancestral Arts, 2013.
Artist’s book, “Staples Edition,” 8 x 9-1/2” each page. Larger format T/K.

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2012 Art

Black Sea Composite Maps 2012
Black Sea Composite Map 4
Black Sea Composite Map 4
Black Sea Composite Map 8
black sea composite map 8

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Fall 2011 Art

Meena's Book 1.5, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 11" x 15"
inspired by a poem by Meena Alexander, "When Asked What Sort of Book I Wish I Could Make."
Meen's Book 1.5
Back Man + Cook Diptych Left, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 72".
At Aferro, Nell's work turned to grisaille, a change inspired by the paintings themselves.
Back Man + Cook Diptych Left
Back Man + Cook Diptych Right, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 72"
Back Man + Cook Diptych Right
Back Man + Cook 3, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 36-1/4" x 40"
Back Man + Cook 3
Back Man + Cook 2, 2011, acrylic + oil stick on canvas, 40" x 40"
Back Man + Cook 2
No Entre, 2011, acrylic + oil stick on canvas, 32" x 40"
No Entre
Palms at Dusk Get Personal, 2011, digital print on paper, 8” x 10”
art by Nell Painter: alms at Dusk Get Personal, 2011, digital print on paper, 8” x 10”

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2010     2009-2010     2009     2008


2010 Art

Postcard, digital media, 4.25" x 6"
Postcard, 2010

Plantains Series, 2010

Anthroposociology, colored ink, gouache and collage on Yupo, 11" x 14"
Anthroposociology, 2010
Aug-Sept 2010 collage on yupo 3, colored ink, gouache and collage on Yupo, 11" x 14"
   Aug-Sept 2010 collage on yupo 3
Ecclefechan, colored ink, gouache and collage on Yupo, 11" x 14"
   Ecclefechan, 2010
Follow me, colored ink, gouache and collage on Yupo, 11" x 14"
Follow me, 2010
Unfashion J, colored ink and collage on Yupo, 9" x 12"
Unfashion J, 2010
Unfashion 5, colored ink and collage on Yupo, 9" x 12"
Unfashion 5, 2010

Self-portrait Series, 2010

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2009-2010 Art

Beauty: Odalisques, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 60" x 60"
Beauty: Odalisques
Sublime: Apollo, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 60" x 60"
Sublime: Apollo
Beauty + the Sublime: Jackson, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 60" x 60"
Beauty and the Sublime: Jackson
Ingres etching + map, hand-painted etching, colored ink on paper, 22.5" x 30"
Ingres etching and map

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2009 Art

Nine Sylvia Boone Drawings, colored ink on paper, each 11" x 8.5"
9 Sylvia Boone Drawings
Sylvia Boone Drawing 5, colored ink on paper, 11" x 8.5"
Sylvia Boone Drawing 5
Sylvia Boone Drawing for Bettye Collier-Thomas, colored ink on paper, 11" x 8.5"
Sylvia Boone Drawing for Bettye Collier-Thomas
Tubman in Prague, colored ink and acrylic on paper, 22.5" x 30"
Tubman in Prague
Doghead, hand colored lithograph, 3.5" x 8.0" x 3.0"
Doghead, hand colored lithograph
Panoti, hand colored lithograph 7.35" x 15"
Panoti, hand colored lithograph



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2008 Art

One of Nell Painter’s One Hundred Drawings for Hanneline
appears on the cover of the poet Dionne Brand’s Fierce Departures (2008).
cover for D. Brand's book of poetry Fierce Departures

Brooklyn Photographs Series, 2008

In November-December 2008 Nell Painter created a series of paintings inspired by Brooklyn photographs by Lucille Fornasieri-Gold in the Brooklyn Historical Society. Here are four from that series, ink and gouache on paper, all 22" x 30".

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Read about Nell's Art Events
Including Articles and Interviews (by Year)

2019      2018      2017       2014       2013      2012       2011       2009


2017 Art Events

Nell's interview in Art in Print: Nell Painter: Working In The Year 2017

Video of Nell's interview with Carol Jenkins on CUNY Television's Black America series on April 26, 2017, "Black America - Through a Painter's Eye with Nell Painter": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_b6qwX9f0c&t=6s

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2014 Art Events

The French group Les Amis de Beauford Delaney protect the memory of the great American painter who lived and died in France. They discovered that Nell Painter had made work inspired by Beauford Delaney.
Les Amis de Beauford Delaney: Nell Painter on Beauford

NJTV video interviews include Nell Painter and shows her work. NJTV visits Emerge 11, an exhibit of 21 artists at Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Emerge is a group art show and also a professional development program for artists. NJTV spoke with the founding directior and five of the Emerge 11 artists, including Nell Painter. (Published on Oct 23, 2014)
Nell's interview is from 4:52 to 6:17 in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQJYPoyEzsY

Nell Painter is mentioned in a review of the Emerge 11 group show in the Star-Ledger newspaper (Art Review: Emerge 11 at Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, in Newark). Here is an excerpt from that review, discussing Nell's work:

"I think there's a lot of heart in this show," says Jorge Rojas, the independent curator who organized "Emerge 11," though he didn't choose the artists. The show is one of the rewards for acceptance into the program. "There's a lot of handwork. Most of the artists are younger than I am, but there's also Nell Painter. She had a distinguished career as a historian at Princeton University, concentrating in 19th century Southern American history, and then she decided to pursue a career in art, and went through the Rhode Island School of Design. And now she's showing these hypnotic abstractions based on an archival photograph of a dog fight in Brooklyn in the 1970s. You can still see the dogs, but they're like a memory buried in the picture."

The entire Star-Ledger review can be read here:
Art Review: Emerge 11 at Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, in Newark

Nell was on a panel discussion on poetic process, cultural translation, and aesthetic collaboration at The Center for the Humanities, CUNY, Mar 5, 2014: "Birthplace with Buried Stones."

poster for the event: Birthplace with Buried Stones, March 5, 2014
Poster for Birthplace with Buried Stones 2014 panel discussion

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2013 Art Events

Nell in her studio with some of her artwork on the Newark Arts website: by Colleen Gutwein, Newark Arts Photo Documentary Project, https://www.newarkartsphotodoc.com/dr-nell-painter.


2012 Art Events

In spring 2012 Nell was artist-and-scholar in residence in the Department of African American Studies at Yale University. Her new art project was Odalisque Atlas (beauty + sex + slavery): http://afamstudies.yale.edu/news/nell-irvin-painter-2012-visiting-fellow-afam-studies

Evonne Davis, Nell, and Glenn Shafer at an opening at Aferro, an artist-run space in downtown Newark where Nell was an artist in residence 2011-2012. Evonne and Emma Wilcox run Aferro, which has been in its present location on Market Street for more than five years.
Evonne Davis, Nell, and Glenn Shafer at an opening at Aferro

2011 Art Events

Nell Painter has earned her MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design!
Nell's RISD MFA graduation
Charles Botsman-Feimster beside Nell's painting Back Man 1 in the RISD 2011 MFA show.
Charles Botsman-Feimster beside Nell's painting Back Man 1
Nell's studio at the Rhode Island School of Design in the winter of 2011, with Lucille Fornasieri-Gold's photos on the wall with Nell's paintings.
Nell's studio at the Rhode Island School of Design

2009 Art Events

Nell received a BFA degree in painting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers-the State University of New Jersey in May 2009 (while she was actually serving as a visiting professor at the University of Rome Tre). As the Virtual Artist in Residence of the Creative Research Center of Montclair State University in New Jersey, her work can be seen at http://www.montclair.edu/creativeresearch/index.html.