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R.H. Quaytman Chapter 10: Ark (Storefront, L.E.S.), 2008-2009
American
Born 1961

R.H. Quaytman

American-born R.H. Quaytman has made his mark on the world of contemporary art, gaining fans and creating works that fetch high prices on the collector market and garner the praise of art critics around the world. From his earliest days as a young painter to his current position as a collector favorite, R.H. Quaytman has created provocative works of art that are easily distinguishable from those of other artists.

 

R.H. Quaytman is best known for his unique paintings, which use wood panels as the base and add photographic and abstract elements that are often site specific. One prime example of this technique is R.H. Quaytman's Chapters. Every chapter of this seminal work focus on the historical, social and architectural nature of its setting.

 

R.H. Quaytman has enjoyed great success as a 21st century artist, and since 2008, his work has been widely collated and extensively displayed in modern art museums and galleries throughout the country and beyond. Collectors love his work, and she is widely considered an up-and-coming artist to watch.

 

Born Rebecca Howe Quaytman in Boston, Massachusetts, the artist now known as R.H. Quaytman is the daughter of Susan Howe, a widely recognized postmodern American poet. Her father was also a noted artist, an abstract painter by the name of Harvey Quaytman. The elder Quaytman isi best known for his bold geometric works, and he is a very successful painter in his own right.

 

R.H. Quaytman's parents actually met while they were both painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, so art has been an integral part of her life even before she was born. When R.H. Quaytman was only four years old, her mother began living with fellow abstract artist David von Schlegell, whom she later married. R.H. Quaytman would later go on to credit both her father and her stepfather with influencing her work and guiding her toward her lucrative future career.

 

By 1987, R.H. Quaytman was already pursuing her love of art, and in that year, she found work at PS1, where she would go on to become the Program Coordinator. She remained program coordinator at PS1 for three years, and worked as an assistant to artist Dan Graham in 1991.

 

R.H. Quaytman also studied for a year at the prestigious National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland. She also attended the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques, a Paris institution, where she was mentored by both Pontus Hulten and Daniel Buren.

 

By 2005, R.H. Quaytman had become a founding member of a cooperative art gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. That cooperative art collective, known as Orchard, was run by twelve separate partners, and it was a big hit with artists and collectors alike.

 

From 2006 on, R.H. Quaytman has been a member of the faculty at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson in New York State. It is there she teaches the art of painting through the Masters of Fine Arts program, and through that work, R.H. Quaytman has influenced the next generation of contemporary artists.

 

In addition to her teaching duties at Bard College, R.H. Quaytman is a highly sought after visiting artist, lecturer and scholar, traveling across the country to influence even more young artists. She was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize in 1992, and that award gave her the opportunity to pursue her work uninterrupted for an entire year.

 

The result of that uninterrupted year of creativity was a series of paintings conceived as a single group. R.H. Quaytman would later describe these separate but interrelated works as sentences, and the results were instantly recognized for their quality and unique design.

 

R.H. Quaytman has drawn inspiration from many sources, including the work of fellow artist Dan Graham, for whom she worked as an assistant. Graham was well known for his work with time-delay video installations, and R.H. Quaytman began to use photographic elements in her own work. Those photographic elements were applied using silk-screening techniques, and the influence of Graham is clearly evident in the finished works. The influence of Graham is particularly apparent in one of R.H. Quaytman's best known works. That work features a silkscreened image of Graham himself.

 

By her 40th birthday, R.H. Quaytman was already a very successful artist, so it is only fitting that she was invited to exhibit 40 of her best works at the Queens Museum of Art. That show took place in 2001, and it helped cement R.H. Quaytman's place in the world of contemporary art. Her works have been exhibited in museums around the world, including shows at New York City institutions like the Whitney. With so much talent, it is clear that R.H. Quaytman is only getting started.

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