Susan Bee (born January 14, 1952) is an American painter, editor, and book artist known for her work in book form and as co-editor and co-founder of M/E/A/N/I/N/G.

Early life and education

Bee became interested in making art at a young age. She and her family visited

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Provi ...

during the summers, where she took art classes at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and took sailing lessons as a teenager. She attended the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. Bee has a B.A. from

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

and a M.A. in art from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

(graduated 1977).

Career

Bee has been painting since the 1970s, with her early work being abstract. In her early career, she also worked with altered photos. She adopted a more figurative style following her mother's death in 1980, and was inspired by a "pastiche of different styles". Her more recent work has been described as a "distinctive stylistic blend of folk art and pastoral psychedelia" and as "whimsically surrealist". She has taught at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

MFA in Art Criticism and Writing program and at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and at Pratt Institute. Susan Bee in Speaking Portraits c

Her artwork is included in many public and private collections including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, Getty Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yale University, Clark Art Institute, New York Public Library, and Harvard University Library.

Fellowships and grants

She has had Fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2002 and 1999, Yaddo Fellowships in 2001 and 1996, and at the MacDowell Colony in 2012. In addition, she has had publication grants from the Visual Arts Program, the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, from 1992 to 1997 and Publication Grants, from the Visual Arts Program, New York State Council on the Arts, from 1989 to 1997. In 2014, Susan Bee was awarded a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

Exhibitions

Susan Bee is currently represented by A.I.R. Gallery, where she has been a member since 1997. She has had solo shows at the New York Public Library, Kenyon College, Columbia University, William Paterson University, and Virginia Lust Gallery, and her work has been included in numerous group shows. She has had ten solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery in New York. In 2024, "Susan Bee, Eye of the Storm: Selected Works 1981-2023” was presented at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM). The show was curated by

Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital art a ...

. A 68-page full-color catalog with essays by Drucker,

John Yau John Yau (born June 5, 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books, ficti ...

, and Raphael Rubinstein was published by PAAM.

Solo exhibitions

* ''The War Series 1966-1970'' (2003), Galerie Lelong * ''Criss Cross: New Paintings'' (2013), Accola Griefen Gallery * ''Photograms and Altered Photos from the 1970s'' (2015), Southfirst Gallery, Brooklyn. * ''Pow! New Paintings'' (March 16-April 16, 2017), A.I.R. Gallery * 2023, A.I.R. Gallery.

Group exhibitions

* ''Seeing Double'' (February-March 2006), A.I.R. Gallery; with Miriam Laufer

Artist's books

Bee has published six artist's books with Granary Books. These include several collaborations with poets: ''Bed Hangings'', with Susan Howe, ''A Girl’s Life'', with

, ''The Burning Babe and Other Poems'' with Jerome Rothenberg, and ''Log Rhythms'' and ''Little Orphan Anagram'' with Charles Bernstein. In addition, she has published nine artist's books for other publishers, including ' 'Off-World Fairy Tales' ' with Drucker (2020), ''Fabulas Feminae'' with Drucker (2015), ''Entre'' (2009) with poems by Regis Bonvicino, from Global Books, Paris, and ''The Invention Tree'' (2012) with poems by Jerome McGann, Chax Press.

Editing

Bee is the co-editor, with Mira Schor, of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: ''An Anthology of Artist's Writings, Theory, and Criticism'', with writings by over 100 artists, critics, and poets, published by Duke University Press in 2000. She was the co-editor of ''M/E/A/N/I/N/G: A Journal of Contemporary Art Issues'' from 1986 to 1996 and is currently the co-editor of ''M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online''.

Personal life

Susan Bee is married to poet Charles Bernstein, whom she met when they were students at the same Manhattan high school. They have two children, Emma Bee Bernstein (May 16, 1985 - December 20, 2008) and Felix Bernstein (born May 20, 1992). Her parents, Jewish American artists Miriam Laufer and Sigmund Laufer, immigrated to the United States in 1947. She is the great-grandaughter of a

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

scribe.

References

External links

Susan Bee web site at EPCSusan Bee at A.I.R.Personal Statement on the Brooklyn Museum's website

Podcast with Susan Bee about her career (MACBA 2020)''Brooklyn Rail'' NSE video interview with Ann McCoy (2023)Video interview
with Siri Hustvedt (2020)
Susan Bee audio/video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bee, Susan 1952 births Living people 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American painters 21st-century American women painters American book artists American contemporary painters American feminist artists American women book artists Barnard College alumni Hunter College alumni Jewish American artists Jewish American feminists Painters from New York (state)