123 East 19th Street

Artist Jennifer Bartlett American, 1941–2022

Date1977

MediumEnamel over screen-printed baked enamel on steel plates; 80 plates

DimensionsOverall: 51 x 259 in. (129.5 x 657.9 cm)
Each plate: 12 x 12 in. (30.5 x 30.5 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of GlaxoSmithKline

Object number2007.15/a-bbbb

On View

Not on view

Label TextThinking of the enameled steel plates as “hard paper,” Bartlett created a constant and unchangeable surface for her paintings. Each of the eighty plates represents one small unit and can be put together, like a binary code, to complete her painting. Bartlett’s mathematical formulation juxtaposed with her stormy brushwork brings both the digital and the analog into conversation.

Between 1976 and 1978, Bartlett worked on a series of house paintings featuring the home addresses of her friends and family. To Bartlett 123 East 19th Street represents a portrait of the inhabitants of this house in abstracted form.
[M. Brooks, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated New York, 1977; collection of the artist; [Paula Cooper Gallery, New York]; Burroughs Wellcome & Co, 1979; [on extended loan to NCMA, 1989–2007]; Glaxo Wellcome, Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC, 1995; GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, 2000; given to NCMA, 2007.
Published ReferencesMarge Goldwater, et al, Jennifer Bartlett (exhibition catalogue) (New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 51, illus. (color) 143-43 (catalogue only, not in exhibition).

Jennifer Bartlett's Enameled Steel Plates (Philadelphia: Locks Gallery, 2012), illus. (color) 80-81.
Exhibition History[probably New York, Paula Cooper Gallery, "Jennifer Bartlett," October 8-November 9, 1977.]

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–December 11, 2023. Object Rights Statement

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