Background
Jo Baer was born on August 7, 1929 in Seattle, Washington, United States. She is a daughter of Lester Kleinberg, a commodities broker in hay and grain, and Hortense Kalisher Kleinberg, a commercial artist.
Cornish College of the Arts
University of Washington
New School for Social Research
Jo Baer was born on August 7, 1929 in Seattle, Washington, United States. She is a daughter of Lester Kleinberg, a commodities broker in hay and grain, and Hortense Kalisher Kleinberg, a commercial artist.
Initially, Jo Baer attended the Cornish College of the Arts. Some time later, in 1946, in order to study biology, she enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she studied until 1949. At the university, Jo also took introductory painting and drawing courses. During the period from 1950 to 1953, Baer attended the New School for Social Research in New York, where she studied perceptual psychology and philosophy.
In 1953, Jo Baer moved to Los Angeles, where she started to create Abstract Expressionist paintings, most of which she later destroyed. Some time later, in 1960, she came back to New York, where she began to explore Hard-edge painting. In 1970, Baer started to introduce diagonal and curved flourishes into her paintings.
In 1975, Jo held a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and some time later, she moved to Ireland and made a dramatic break from her prior work, pursuing a painting style, which she described as "radical figuration". Her initial imagery borrowed from Paleolithic art and archetypal symbols of the female sex.
In 1983, she published her well-known article "I am no longer an Abstract Artist", which was published in the magazine "Art in America". In the article, she explained her new approach to "radical figuration" as a means of leaving the formal self-centredness of Minimal Art behind and granting the subject and its reality a place in the painterly illusion. The following year, in 1984, the painter left for Amsterdam, where she currently lives.
In the 1990s, Baer's paintings became, in her words, "more declarative", with richer colors, sharper light-dark contrasts and more ambitious cultural and social criticism. Two paintings in this style are "Shrine of the Piggies" and "Testament of the Powers That Be".
In 2013, Jo held her solo exhibitions at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Ludwig Museum in Cologne.
Currently, Baer continues to develop the formal content of her paintings in a quasi-figurative manner, that she considers radical figuration, without pre-eminence of image or space.
Untitled (Vertical Flanking Diptych - Red)
Bootless Boots
Rook
Untitled (Lavender Wraparound)
Untitled
Glass Slippers
H. Arcuata
Amphora Frieze
Sex Symbol
Untitled (Lipstick)
Cadmos' Thicket
Hiccup
Untitled (Double Bar Orange)
Primary Light Group: Red, Green, Blue
Untitled
Untitled
Cardinations
Untitled
Quotations: "Courage is the ability to conquer fear or despair, to be brave or have a quality of mind or temperament that enables you to stand fast in the face of opposition, hardship or danger."
While studying at the University of Washington, Jo Baer married Gerard L. Hanauer, but their marriage didn't last long. Some time later, she married Richard Baer, a television writer. The couple gave birth to their son — Joshua Baer, who would later become an art dealer, writer and consultant. In the late 1950s, Jo and Richard divorced.
In 1960, Jo married John Wesley, a painter, with whom she divorced ten years later. After separating from Wesley, Baer was in a long-term relationship with the sculptor Robert Lawrance Lobe.