Image courtesy of Peter Frank Edwards/Redux
Suzanne Jackson (b. 1944, St. Louis) first moved westward with her parents to San Francisco, after which the family continued north to Yukon Territory. She came of age in the remote natural environment of pre-statehood Alaska, later returning to the Bay Area to study painting and theater at San Francisco State University, and dance at the Pacific Ballet. She settled in Echo Park in 1967, where she worked as an artist and teacher, and attended Charles White’s drawing class at Otis Art Institute. Jackson engaged a community of artist peers —including David Hammons, Timothy Washington, Alonzo Davis, Dan Concholar, Senga Nengudi, George Evans, Gloria Bohanon, Betye Saar, and Emory Douglas—through Gallery 32, which she ran from her studio in the Granada Buildings near McArthur Park from 1968 to 1970. In a career spanning more than five decades, Jackson has worked experimentally across genres including drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking, poetry, dance, theater and costume design. In her lyrical work from the 1960s and 70s, figures and recurring symbols are built up through multiple layers of acrylic wash on canvas, creating ethereal paintings in which any firm distinction between depicted elements is dissolved. Built up through layers of pure acrylic, Jackson’s recent “anti-canvases” are partially structured with netting, rods, and paper fragments, and strewn with cast- off color and other prosaic elements: peanut shells, bamboo, bells, loquat seeds, leather string. The artist’s handmade gestural impressions—pinching, crimping, and pleating—occur within a material transparency that lends each composition a uniquely lyrical and luminous dimensionality.
Jackson works in Savannah, Georgia, where she has lived since 1996. She received an MFA in theatre design from Yale University 1990, and is a recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler Award for Painting (2024), Jacob Lawrence Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters (2022), an Anonymous Was A Woman grant (2021), NYFA Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award (2020) and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019). Recent solo and survey exhibitions include Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2024); Somethings in the World, Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Milan (2023); To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting, Gagosian, London (2023); Arts Club of Chicago (2022); Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present, the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); Joan Didion: What She Means, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art, Knoxville Museum of Art (2023); Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades, Jepson Center/Telfair Museums, Savannah (2019); Life Model: Charles White and His Students, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019); West by Midwest, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018–19); Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Brooklyn Museum, New York and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2018–20); Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, MoMA PS1, New York, and Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (2011–13); Gallery 32 & Its Circle, Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (2009). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. She is represented by Ortuzar Projects, New York.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Born 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri
BA, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, 1966
MFA, Yale University School of Drama, New Haven, CT, 1990
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Somethings in the World, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy
2022
Suzanne Jackson: Listen’ N Home, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
In Nature’s Way..., The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland
2019
News!, Ortuzar Projects, New York, New York
Five Decades, Jepson Center, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia
Holding on to a Sound, O-Town House, Los Angeles, California
2015
Suzanne Jackson: Suggestions from Nature, Temporary Agency, Ridgewood, New York
2013
Birdmusic, Indigo Sky Gallery, Savannah, Georgia
2012
Suzanne Jackson, Local 11 Ten, Savannah, Georgia
2010
Lighter than Usual, Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Danville, Virginia
2009
Southern Shapes and Surfaces, Phillip J. Hamilton Gallery, Savannah State University, Savannah, Georgia
Suzanne Jackson, Robert Ferst Center for the Arts, Georgia Tech University, Atlanta, Georgia
Suzanne Jackson, Parkersburg Art Center, Parkersburg, West Virginia
2008
Beyond the Image: Abstraction Today, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, Virginia
Suzanne Jackson and Peter Hoss, Albany Art Museum, Albany, Georgia
2007
Suzanne Jackson Monoprints: The Colored Garden, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California
2005
Suzanne Jackson: Monoprints and Drawings, Pinnacle Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia
2002
Suzanne Jackson: A Drawing, La Minime’s Galerie, La Rochelle, France
2001
Suzanne Jackson, Café Metropole, Savannah, Georgia
1999
Suzanne Jackson / Michael Rich, Galerie Lumiere, Savannah, Georgia
1986
Suzanne Jackson, Black Like Me Gallery, San Francisco, California
1985
Suzanne Jackson, Sargent Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, California
1984
Suzanne Jackson / Tom Corn, Fashion Moda, South Bronx, New York
Little Images, Ingber Gallery, New York, New York
Suzanne Jackson: Recent Paintings, Landau Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1981
Exhibit A Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia
1979
Suzanne Jackson, Robert’s, Venice, Los Angeles, California
1978
Suzanne Jackson, Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1976
Suzanne Jackson: Paintings and Drawings, Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1974
Suzanne Jackson, Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1972
Recent Paintings and Drawings, Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Suzanne Jackson: Drawings and Paintings, Fresno Art Center, Fresno, California
Suzanne Jackson: Paintings, Haggin Art Galleries, Pioneer Museum, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
Suzanne Jackson, San Jose Art League, San Jose, California
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Finding Aid, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London
2023
Making Their Mark, Shah Garb Foundation, New York. Exhibition traveled to Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversation on Contemporary Abstract Painting, Gagosian, London
Re-PAIR:Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee
2022
Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
Joan Didion: What She Means, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California
2021
You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby: The Sapphire Show, Ortuzar Projects, New York, New York
Now Is The Time: Recent Acquisitions to the Contemporary Collection, Baltimore Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
I Know Where I'm Going Who Can I Be Now, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland Off the Wall, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, New York
Winterfest: An Exhibition of Arts and Crafts, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado
2020
Stars of Everything: Dial World, Part II, David Lewis Gallery, New York, New York
2019
Life Model: Charles White and His Students, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Entanglements, Laney Contemporary, Savannah, Georgia
Denying the Calendar, the Wrinkles and Lines of the Body, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, California
Please Recall to Me Everything You Have Thought Of, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, California
2018
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
West by Midwest, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
2016
Reflections of the Self: Selections from the Permanent Collection, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California
2011
Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California. Exhibition traveled to MoMA PS1, Queens, New York; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
2010
Why Go Anywhere Else?, Center of Contemporary Art, Petrović Castle, Podgonica, Montenegro. Exhibition traveled to Modern Gallery, Budva, Montenegro; Kod Homena Gallery, Kotor, Montenegro; Gallery Josip Bepo Benković, Herceg-Novi, Montenegro; O3ONE Art Space, Belgrade, Serbia; Cvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion, Belgrade, Serbia; Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia.
Normal Editions Workshop Collaborative: Prints, 1976–2008, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
2009
Gallery 32 & Its Circle, Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California
Places of Validation, Art and Progression, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California
2005
African American Artists in Los Angeles: A Survey Exhibition, Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, California State University, Los Angeles, California
2002
International Biennale for Contemporary Art, Die Heft, Knappenberg, Austria
2000
The Right to Be, John Slade Ely House Museum, New Haven, Connecticut
1989
The Sixties: A Cultural Awakening Reevaluated, 1965–1975, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California
1985
California Black Women Artists, Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, California
1981
Forever Free: Art by African-American Women 1862–1980, Center for the Visual Arts, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. Exhibition traveled to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina; The University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1978
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1977
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
1975
Selected Visions, Black Expressions: Charles White, Suzanne Jackson, William Pajaud, Haggin Art Galleries, Pioneer Museum, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
1974
Synthesis, Just Above Midtown Gallery, New York, New York
Directions in Afro American Art, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
West Coast ’74: The Black Image, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, California. Exhibition traveled to Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
1973
Black Mirror, Womanspace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Blacks U.S.A. 1973, New York Cultural Center, New York, New York
Diana Bates Edwards, Suzanne Jackson, Mary O’Neal, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California
Art of Black Americans, ‘73, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California
1971
Black Untitled II/Dimensions of the Figure, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
1970
Sapphire Show: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, Gallery 32, Los Angeles, California
Two Generations of Black Artists, Fine Arts Gallery, California State College-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
1968
Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, California
For more information, please visit Ortuzar Projects