Susan Rothenberg

In 1970s New York, Susan Rothenberg’s raw, spare paintings of horses helped resurrect figurative painting after years of Minimalist and Conceptualist dominance. The artist, whose subject matter expanded to heads, hands, bones, dogs, and dancers, was known for her muddied colors, intuitive process, and thick, gestural brushwork. Her canvases suggested the influence of Alberto Giacometti, Philip Guston, and the severe simplicity of ancient cave paintings. Rothenberg has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Basel, the Stedelijk Museum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work has sold for seven figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Tate. Rothenberg was married to Conceptual artist Bruce Nauman from 1989 until her death in 2020.