Bo Bartlett

Artist Biography

Columbus, Ga., artist and native Bo Bartlett (b. 1955) is a premier American realist painter who has shown in almost 30 states. In addition to his participation in 130-plus group exhibitions, Bartlett has shown in some 40 solo shows. His solo exhibitions include those at the Mennello Museum of American Art and Orlando Museum in Florida; the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta and the Columbus Museum of Art, both in Georgia; the Ogden Museum in New Orleans, La.; the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine; the Rockford Art Museum in Illinois; and the Greenville County Museum of Art and Columbia’s 701 Center for Contemporary Art, both in South Carolina. The Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University in 2018 presented a retrospective of his work. The more than two dozen public collections, including more than a dozen museums, that hold Bartlett’s work include the Mennello, Ogden, Columbus, Greenville County and Morris museums as well as Colorado’s Denver Museum of Art; the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn.; the La Salle University Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, both in Philadelphia; California’s Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Seattle Art Museum and Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, both in Washington; and Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. Bartlett studied in Philadelphia at the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He also received a certificate in filmmaking from New York University and produced a film about the late painter Andrew Wyeth.

Artist Statement

The purpose of art is to wake us up. I believe in the power of art to transform lives.