Susan Rothenberg
American, 1945–2020
Contemporary painter Susan Rothenberg was born in 1945 in Buffalo, New York, and she graduated from Cornell University in 1966. Her work is influenced and challenged by her surroundings, as well as artistic issues and personal experiences. During a time when Minimalism was at the forefront of the New York art scene, Rothenberg was noted for her reintroduction of expressionism and figuration. Her horse figures of the 1970s contained some degree of Minimalism because of their repetitive qualities, and her hectic yet loose rendering of the figures blended the earlier conventions of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. Rothenberg’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Dallas Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Tate Britain, London, among others. She has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Skowhegan Medal in Painting, and the Rolf Schock Prize.
“I think I care about beauty, but I don’t go for it. I hope it sometimes might be in there. I think, maybe, more in terms of a beautiful moment than trying to figure out what beauty is or what people respond to. ”
Photo © Koos Breukel
