Artworks are the intellectual property of the individual artists and © (copyright 2019) by the individual artist, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.
Bo Bartlet
Closely looking at:
“Young Life” 1994
Oil on linen painting with deer hair and found objects.
Collection of Michael Wilkinson
Bo Bartlet is an American realist painter born 1955 in Columbus, Georgia.
At 19, he traveled to Florence, Italy to study painting under Ben Long. He went on to apprentice under Nelson Shanks and to study in several American schools including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and University of the Arts, PA. A Certificate in Film making from New York University in 1986 led him to work with Betty Wyeth on a documentary film, titled Snow Hill, about her husband, Andrew Wyeth, who became both mentor and friend to Bartlett.
An interesting detail of this masterwork is the inclusion of a deer tail in the frame, and deer hair in the paint. A small insect and dandelion seed have also been included under the paint.
Writing about The Fatherland (Study for Young Life) in February of 1994, Bartlett says:
“I saw my sister’s son in this shirt and cap. I asked him to pose with his girlfriend in front of my father’s truck. As I took the photo, my youngest son Eliot ran into the picture. This is a study for a larger painting, Young Love or Young Life or something.” He goes on to list a few influences:
“The Home of the Brave, that photo of Lee Harvey Oswald. Rockwell. Young America by Wyeth. That flower selling group by Picasso in the Barnes. American Gothic, Bruce Springsteen.”
(Source: Photos were taken with the permission of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.)
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