Susan Rothenberg

Susan Rothenberg

Susan Rothenberg was an American painter and draftsman whose work bridged Minimalism, Figurative art, and Abstract expressionism, gaining prominence in the 1970s for large-scale, pared-down images of animals and human figures. Her paintings influenced contemporaries and subsequent generations across New York City, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and international art centers such as London and Paris. She received critical acclaim and major awards while maintaining a studio practice that expanded from painting to printmaking and sculpture.

Early life and education

Rothenberg was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in a milieu connected to regional institutions such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the University at Buffalo (SUNY). She studied at Carnegie Mellon University and later attended the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where she encountered faculty and visiting artists linked to movements including Abstract expressionism and Minimalism. During this formative period she engaged with the legacies of figures like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, and educators from northeastern art schools. Connections with peers who later worked in New York City's downtown art scene shaped her early conceptual and material approaches.

Career and artistic development

Relocating to New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rothenberg developed a visual language that synthesized the scale of Minimalism with figuration associated with painters such as Philip Guston and David Hockney. Her breakthrough came with large canvases featuring a limited palette and emblematic motifs, which placed her in dialogue with institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and galleries active on West Broadway and in SoHo. In the 1980s she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and later to Galisteo, New Mexico, integrating influences from the Southwestern landscape and contemporary peers including Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, and Mark Rothko’s legacy. Over decades she expanded into prints and works on paper, collaborating with workshops and print studios associated with Tamarind Institute and artisanal practices common to ateliers in Los Angeles and London.

Major works and themes

Rothenberg is best known for emblematic paintings of horses and figures executed with animated brushwork and restrained coloration, recalling predecessors like Equestrian portraiture traditions while emphasizing surface and gesture akin to Franz Kline and Helen Frankenthaler. Notable series link to themes addressed by artists such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud—the human body, motion, and an interplay of presence and absence. Her works often juxtapose large, singular motifs against ambiguous grounds, engaging conversations with collectors and curators from institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Tate Modern. Throughout her career she returned to motifs of motion, animality, and corporeality while exploring materials and scale in ways comparable to contemporaries including Brice Marden, Cindy Sherman, and Gerhard Richter.

Exhibitions and critical reception

Rothenberg’s paintings were the subject of solo exhibitions at major venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and international institutions like the Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern. Her work featured in group shows with figures like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Robert Rauschenberg and was discussed in critical forums alongside critics and curators connected to publications and institutions including The New York Times, Artforum, and the Guggenheim. She received awards and fellowships from entities in the field such as the National Endowment for the Arts and had works acquired by collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. Reviews often emphasized her synthesis of gesture and iconography and compared her impact to that of contemporaries like Chuck Close and Alice Neel.

Personal life and legacy

Rothenberg lived and worked in Galisteo, New Mexico and maintained connections to artist communities in Santa Fe, Taos, and New York City. Her career intersected with curators, dealers, and artists associated with galleries on Madison Avenue and institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her legacy persists through holdings in major museums, influence on painters working in figurative and gestural modes, and scholarship housed in archives linked to universities such as Yale University and Columbia University. Posthumous retrospectives and scholarly essays have placed her work in the broader narratives of late 20th- and early 21st-century American painting alongside artists like Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, and Philip Guston.

Category:American painters Category:20th-century American artists Category:21st-century American artists