A standout figure in the canon of American modernism, Bess is admired for his intimate yet charged symbolic paintings. Referred to by the artist as “visions,” the works constellate his repertoire of signs that forge a secret language at once esoteric and accessible. His often small-scale paintings often demonstrate the recurrence of cosmological icons like stars and runes alongside brusque sexual imagery that recollects Bess’s pioneering engagement with fluid gender identity and representation.
Indeed, many of the works serve as a succinct biographies of the artist’s fascinating life––both direct translations of images he pictured in his mind’s eye and isolated symbols that represented episodes significant to his personal history and countercultural philosophic beliefs. Though he rose to prominence as an artist in the Betty Parsons Gallery stable during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, his distinct scale and spirituality differentiated him from his peers. Preferring solitude, the self-alienated Bess developed a theoretical mysticism derived from mythology and Jungian psychoanalysis which posited that the key to immortality was achieved by the possession of hermaphroditic sexual attributes. To this end, Bess performed several surgeries on himself throughout his lifetime to support his thesis. The works on display reveal this quest for duality and restored unity.
Bess’s works have entered numerous public collections such as The Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA; Glenstone, Potomac, MD, USA; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Matagorda County Museum, Bay City, TX, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, Purchase, NY, USA; Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., USA; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA.
Awards & Education
1931–1933, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA
1929–1931, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, College Station, TX, USA
Solo Exhibition At A Major Institution
2022
Forrest Bess: I Can Close My Eyes in a Dark Room, The Ranch, Montauk, NY, USA,
2021
Forrest Bess: Out of the Blue, Camden Art Centre, London
2020
Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany
2018
Modern Art, London
2017
Forrest Bess | Joan Snyder, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY, travelling to: Parrasch Heijnen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2016
Forrest Bess: Paintings, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
2013
Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, travelling to: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2013-14); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, Purchase, NY (2014); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (2014)
2012
"My painting is tomorrow's painting. Watch and see." Forrest Bess: Including works from the Harry Burkhart Collection, Christie's, New York, NY, USA
1994
Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland
1991
CompassRose Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
1989
Forrest Bess (1911–1977): Here is a Sign, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1988
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY, travelling to: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, USA
1986
Butler Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
1981
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
1977
Texas, The Art League of Bay City, Bay City, TX, USA
1974
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, USA
1967
Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1963
The New Arts, Houston, TX, USA
1962
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA
Forrest Bess: Retrospective Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1959
Forrest Bess: Recent Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1958
Bess, André Emmerich Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
1957
Forrest Bess: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1951
Memorial Student Center, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, College Station, TX, USA
Forrest Bess–One Man Show, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX, USA
Paintings by Forrest Bess, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
1950
Forrest Bess: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1946
Paintings by Forrest Bess, Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
1941
One Man Show by Forrest Bess, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
1940
Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
1939
Art Institute, Texas Tech College, Lubbock, TX, USA
1938
Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
1936
BayTex Hotel, Bay City, TX, USA
Group Exhibition At A Major Institution
2022
The Outsiders, Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Dallas, TX, USA
STUFF: Organized by Arlene Shechet, Pace, New York, NY, USA
Small Paintings, Venus Over Manhattan, New York, NY, USA
Looking Backward & Forward: Forty Years with NEHMA & What’s Next, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA
2021
All Roads Lead to More Roads, The Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection, David Zwirner, New York, NY, USA
On Leaving, Modern Art, London
Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., USA
2020
The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree, Camden Art Centre, London
2019
Artist’s Choice: Amy Sillman – The Shape of Shape, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Open Ended: Painting and Sculpture, 1900 to Now,San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Downtown Painting, presented by Alex Katz, Peter Freeman, Inc., New York, NY, USA
The Art of Texas: 250 Years, The Witte Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
The World According to, Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2018
The Art of Found Objects: Enigma Variations, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX, USA
School of Chairs, The David Ireland House, 500 Capp Street Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USA
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., travelling to: High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (2018); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2018-19)
2017
Get Outta That Spaceship and Fight Like a Man, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY, USA
The Museum of Everything, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, TAS, Australia
Margins Beyond: Self Taught, Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Dallas, TX, USA
2016
Intersections: Arlene Shechet, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., USA
Before Midnight, Karma, Amagansett, NY, USA
Biennial of Painting 2016: Yoknapatawpha, Roger Raveelmuseum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie, Belgium
When Modern Was Contemporary: Selections from the Roy R. Neuberger Collection, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, travelling to: Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL (2016-17); Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA (2017); Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID (2017); Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM, USA (2017)
Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
2015
Surrealism: The Conjured Life, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA
The Grace Museum, Abilene, TX, USA, Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX, USA, Interior Visions: Selections from the Collection by Alex Katz, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, USA
Collected By A Major Institution
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, USA
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA
Glenstone, Potomac, MD, USA
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Lumber Room, Portland, OR, USA
Matagorda County Museum, Bay City, TX, USA
The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, Purchase, NY, USA
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., USA
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA
Ruby City, San Antonio, TX, USA
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
