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Will Barnet
Born Beverly, MA 1911-2012, New York City, NY
Aurora (purple), 1977
Serigraph on paper
16 ½ Ã- 40 inches

Value: $9,500

After studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Art Students League of New York, Barnet became an avid printmaker between 1932 and 1942, using the medium to capture the economic and social despair of the Great Depression. He was a member of the Graphic Art Division of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project and printed lithographs for Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.

Barnet is known for his bright, emotive colors and cubist-inspired forms. These abstractions attest to his careful study of the great modern artists such as Matisse, Picasso, and Léger. Throughout the fifties and into the early sixties, Barnet painted abstract compositions, moving from his earlier figural work to cityscape and landscape painting. In the early sixties, the figure reappeared as the primary subject, and by the seventies, he joined his interest in figurative and landscape painting in works that combined the female form with organic imagery of forest, sky, and sea.

Barnet's works are in the collections of the Asheville Art Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.