Artist to Know: Ross Bleckner

Wright Offers Exuberant Paintings and Prints by American Artist

Best known for his large-scale paintings, American artist Ross Bleckner rose to prominence in the mid-1970s and 1980s. His Op-Art-inspired artworks are transcendent and contemplative in nature. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bleckner decided to pursue an art career after encountering a show of Op Art in 1965. His art mainly deals with change, loss, and memory, often highlighting the AIDS crisis in his early works.

A series of paintings by Ross Bleckner is featured in the ongoing selling exhibition held by Wright. Learn more about Bleckner before purchasing a piece.

Raised in a supportive Jewish family, Ross Bleckner grew up in the beautiful town of Hewlett Harbor on Long Island. He moved to New York when he was 25 years old. He went on to study alongside artists Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close at New York University, where Bleckner earned his BA. The artist worked in an art supply store and drove a taxi as a young college student. He later received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1973. He returned to New York In 1974 and held his first show with Cunningham Ward Gallery in 1975.  

Some of Bleckner’s famous works focusing on the AIDS epidemic include Small Count (1990), 8,122+ as of January 1986 (1986), and Throbbing Heart (1994). In the painting, 8,122+ as of January 1986, the numerals 8, 1, 2, and 2+ each are painted in the four corners of the canvas. It represents the total number of people who had died of HIV/AIDS at that point in history. In addition to AIDS, the artist was deeply touched by cancer, and his works, especially in the 1990s, focused on imagery inspired by cellular transformation.

In an interview with The New York Times, the artist once said, “I want to be as good as I can, for as long as I can. And, hopefully, break through that darkness with a little bit of light once in a while. If people like it, great. If they don’t, well, that’s life.”

The artist is equally renowned for featuring Op Art abstraction in his paintings. He has often incorporated birds, lights, symbolic plants, or candelabras that tactfully evoked feelings of bereavement, melancholy, and loss. These are highly evident in works such as Memorial II (1994), Bird Painting for Bid for Life (1995), and Love and Lost (2020). On Bleckner’s works from the 1980s and 1990s, Jane Panetta, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, says, “His paintings grappling with the AIDS crisis are some of the strongest we have from that moment. Formally, he’s impressive. You can stand there and just appreciate how he applies paint to the canvas.”

The ongoing Alchemy & Joy: Paintings by Ross Bleckner selling exhibition at Wright features paintings as well as prints from the artist. Completed in 2021, an available untitled flower painting from the Conquering Negative Feeling series showcases black and white flowers. The artwork highlights the fragility and transience of flowers. 
Bleckner’s works have been featured in prominent museums throughout the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He was the youngest artist ever to hold a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His circular dot paintings that highlight the disastrous impact of the AIDS epidemic are highly sought-after in the art community. Bleckner’s highest auction record is $192,000 for Oceans in 2006. More recently, Phillips sold Bleckner’s Birdland painting for a whopping $156,250 in 2019. It more than doubled its high estimate of $70,000.

Visit Wright for more information about Ross Bleckner and the ongoing selling exhibition.  

Looking for more artist profiles? Auction Daily recently examined the work of Francis Bacon, a renowned British painter of the 20th century.