John Beardman (born December 5, 1937 in

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, whi ...

) is a contemporary American artist. He is an abstract expressionist and a major contributor to “art as process” and "

action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...

" influenced by Willem de Kooning. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

Birmingham, Michigan Birmingham is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Detroit located along the Woodward Corridor ( M-1). As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,103. History The area comprising what is now the ...

and

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. Beardman has received numerous creative artist's grants and fellowships. He currently lives and works in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and has a Studio in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Life and work

John Beardman was born in

December 5, 1937. At the age of twelve he moved with his family to a farm outside of

Warren, Ohio Warren is a city in and the county seat of Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Located in northeastern Ohio, Warren lies approximately northwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 39,201 at the 2020 census. The hi ...

and started painting at the age of nineteen. He was first intrigued with gesture painting and was later influenced by Dutch-American abstract expressionist

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

. Beardman studied at Case Western Reserve University, Oberlin College and

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...

. In the 60s he also studied with Stanley William Hayter at his

Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York during the years surrounding World War II. It moved back t ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and at the

College of Sorbonne The College of Sorbonne (french: Collège de Sorbonne) was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1253 (confirmed in 1257) by Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), after whom it was named. With the rest of the Paris colleges, ...

and received a certificate. He earned his living as art professor at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

Cranbrook Educational Community The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cra ...

, Academy of Art and Oakland University from 1961 to 1990. From 1992 to 2016 Beardman did most of his art work in his “Studio in the Woods” in Cape Breton Island,

, Canada. He also made an open-air exhibition in 2008 "A Song of the Woods" at his Canadian studio. Beardman has exhibited at various galleries, including one person exhibitions in New York City at Carter Burden Gallery, Noho M55 Gallery, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Inc., Allan Stone Gallery, OK Harris Works of Art, Jayne H. Baum and 55 Mercer Galleries. In

he has exhibited at the Brownstown Gallery and in

at Art Space. He has works in both public and private collections including

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, HDH Corp, Best Products,

Harry Bober Harry Bober (1915–1988) was an American art historian, a university professor, and a writer. He was the first Avalon Professor of the Humanities a New York University (NYU). He wrote and edited several books and published numerous articles ...

, Allan Stone,

Leonard Goldenson Leonard H. Goldenson (December 7, 1905 – December 27, 1999) was the founder and president of the United States-based television network American Broadcasting Company (ABC), from 1953 to 1986. Goldenson, as CEO of United Paramount Theatres, ...

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society an ...

, Academy of Art,

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

Hudson River Museum The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...

and Carter Burden Center. Testimonials have come from critics

Donald Kuspit Donald Kuspit (born March 26, 1935) is an American art critic and poet, known for his practice of psychoanalytic art criticism. He has published on the subjects of avant-garde aesthetics, postmodernism, modern art, and conceptual art. Educatio ...

, April Kingsley and Karen Chambers and from art historians

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

, and

Albert Elsen Albert Edward Elsen, Jr. (October 11, 1927 – February 2, 1995) was an American art historian and educator. A scholar of the work of Auguste Rodin, Elsen was the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. Career Born ...

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beardman, John 1937 births Living people Abstract painters American male painters American abstract artists American Expressionist painters American contemporary painters Artists from New York City Modern painters Case Western Reserve University alumni Oberlin College alumni Southern Illinois University alumni College of Sorbonne alumni University of Connecticut alumni Cranbrook Educational Community alumni Oakland University alumni

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links