SUSAN ROTHENBERG

Early Years

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945, Susan Rothenberg received her BFA from Cornell University in 1967. After a formative period of travel in Europe, she moved to New York City in 1969, immersing herself in the city’s experimental art and performance scene. Her early exposure to avant-garde dance and performance would later influence her approach to movement and gesture in painting. In 1990, Rothenberg moved to a ranch in Galisteo, New Mexico, with her husband, artist Bruce Nauman, where the dramatic landscape and daily life became central to her later work.

Susan Rothenberg Artworks

Rothenberg’s art is celebrated for its physicality, psychological depth, and innovative synthesis of abstraction and figuration, with a practice that spans painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Her works are recognised for their dynamic brushwork, expressive use of colour, and exploration of the body, animals, and the landscape.

The Horse Paintings (1970s)

Rothenberg’s breakthrough came with her first solo exhibition at 112 Greene Street, New York, in 1975, where she presented three large-scale paintings of horses. These works, rendered in a pared-down, glyph-like style and often bisected by bold lines, marked a radical departure from the prevailing Minimalism and Conceptualism of the era. Critic Peter Schjeldahl described the show as ‘a eureka’, noting that ‘the mere reference to something really existing was astonishing’. The horse motif became a signature element, enabling Rothenberg to explore the tension between abstraction and representation, and to introduce psychological complexity into contemporary painting.

Expanding Imagery and Neo-Expressionism (1980s)

In the early 1980s, Rothenberg’s focus shifted from horses to fragmented human forms, including heads, hands, and bodies in motion. Her work became more personal and emotionally charged, exploring themes of identity, memory, and transformation. The transition from acrylic to oil paint enriched her palette and surface textures, while her involvement with dance inspired a series of monumental paintings of dancers, capturing movement and vitality. Rothenberg’s inclusion in the Whitney Museum‘s New Image Painting exhibition in 1978 and the Berlin exhibition Zeitgeist in 1982 cemented her status as a pioneer of Neo-Expressionism and a key figure in the resurgence of figurative art.

New Mexico and Late Work (1990s—2020)

After moving to New Mexico in 1990, Rothenberg’s art reflected the vastness and colour of the Southwestern landscape. Her paintings incorporated animals, domestic scenes, and the natural world, often from a high or tilted vantage point, and were marked by energetic brushwork and vibrant colour. Later works explored puppets, marionettes, and fragmented bodies, further developing her interest in psychological and physical states. Rothenberg continued to experiment with composition and perspective, producing artworks that are both intimate and monumental.

Awards and Accolades

Awards and accolades include:

• Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts, 1980
• Rolf Schock Prize, Stockholm, 2003
• Skowhegan Medal for Painting, 1998

Exhibitions

Susan Rothenberg has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at major institutions and galleries. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• 1975: 112 Greene Street, New York (first solo show)
• 1981—82: Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
• 1982: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
• 1983—85: Retrospective organised by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, travelled to San Francisco Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, and others
• 1992—94: Retrospective, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, travelled to Hirshhorn Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Seattle Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art
• 1999: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 2009—11: Moving in Place, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, travelled to Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, and Miami Art Museum
• 2021—22: Survey, Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Germany; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont

Group Exhibitions

• 1978: New Image Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• 1980: Venice Biennale, American Pavilion
• 1982: Zeitgeist, Berlin
• 1992: Documenta 9, Kassel
• 2007: Venice Biennale, American Pavilion

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Ocula | 2025