American, b. 1934

Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “portray a sense of vastness” and instill feelings of awe in his viewers, he says. Furthering his exploration of the abstract, Barkoff paints in his studio, rather than en plein air, fabricating landscapes from his visual and emotional memories. The Impressionist-turned-Expressionist painter is inspired by the atmospheric qualities of works by Claude Monet and J. M. W. Turner and cites Gerhard Richter as a more contemporary influence. He recently transitioned from using a paintbrush to using a squeegee and palette knives for his work, as the latter allow for greater spontaneity and manipulation of color.

He says of his work: “Looking at a blank canvas can be both exciting and frightening at the same time.  Most of the time exciting wins out and I plunge in.  That is, I paint the landscape, which for me is what it’s all about.  The landscape represents nature and contemplating nature is being in touch with God.  You could cast me as a modern-day Luminist-Tonalist-Impressionist.  Monet’s Water Lilies have been a big influence, along with the landscape painter Wolf Kahn.”

“The landscape is what I see before me or from my mind’s eye.  When I paint a mountain or a tree, I’m not trying to capture the mountain or tree literally (that’s what a photograph does).  I’m trying to express my inner spirit in the painting – to transcend the physical to reach the spiritual.”

“My most successful pictures are not those that are the most accurate in terms of nature, but are the ones where the state of my consciousness allowed me to translate my feelings – my deepest inner feelings – to the canvas.  When I get into this altered state, it’s just a fantastic feeling.  I think most artists paint in order to get into this altered state.  I know I do.  Hopefully, what comes out is a perceptual poem.”

Solo & Group Exhibitions

2023 Washington Art Association Faculty Show, Washington Depot, CT
2022 Group Show, Cavalier Galleries, New York, NY
2015 The La Jolla Gallery, La Jolla, CA
2014 Circle of Influence – Ira Barkoff and the Washington Art Association, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT
2013 December Group Show, Cavalier Ebanks Galleries, Greenwich, CT
2006-2012 Brick Walk Gallery, West Hartford, CT
2006-2017 Ober Gallery, Kent, CT
2005 Walker-Kornbluth Gallery, Fairlawn, NJ
2003-2012 Munson Gallery, Chatham, MA
2004, Morrison Gallery, Kent, CT
2003, Morrison Gallery, Kent, CT
2001-2012 Lenox Gallery of Fine Arts, Lenox, MA
 
Juried Exhibitions
2010 Fifteen Artists, One Exhibition - Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT
1998 Three Rivers Art Festival, Pittsburgh, PA
1994 First Street Gallery, National Competition juried by Wayne Thiebaud, New York, NY
1993 Art of Northeast USA, Silvermine juror, Eliza Rathbone, Curator – Phillips Collection
1991 Aetna Gallery, Curated show “Realism”, Hartford, CT
1989 Stamford Museum, Stamford, CT juried by Kenworth Moffet, former curator of Twentieth Century Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA 

Additional Group Exhibitions
2011, 2002-2005 Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
2008-2011 Pryor Fine Arts, Atlanta, GA
2009-2012 Ann Anda Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME
2005 Hoorn-Ashby Gallery, New York, NY
2005 City Lights Gallery, Three Person Exhibition, Bridgeport, CT
2005 Kaller Fine Art, Bethesda, MD
2002 New York Paris Kent Gallery, Kent, CT
2001 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Three Person Exhibition, Kent, CT
2001 Riester/Greenberg Gallery, New Preston, CT
1994 Linda McAdoo Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1993 Birdsnest Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME
1992 Grand Central Gallery, Romantic Realism, New York, NY
1992 Hillsdale College, Romantic Realism, Hillsdale, MI
1991, 1987 Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, NY
1990 Anna Howard Gallery, Washington, CT
1987 Ellen-Baker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1984 Mussavi Art Center, New York, NY
1983 Gregg Galleries, National Arts Club, New York, NY
1981 Martha Whitt Gallery, Louisville, KY 

Selected Collections
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT
Raymond Learsy, Sharon, CT
Still Mountain Center, Kent, CT
American Home Products, New York, NY
Pfizer Corporation, New York, NY
Phoenix Home Life Insurance, Hartford, CT
Dawes Music, New York, NY
Durham Ziff Collection, New York, NY
Five Points Gallery Collection, East Chatham, NY
Alan Greenspan, former Chairman, Federal Reserve, Washington, DC
John Gillis, Architect, New York, NY
John & Diane Wren, FL
Unilever Headquarters, Greenwich, CT
Kurt & Tomoko Masur, New York, NY
Jerry Della Femina, New York, NY
Pioneer Group, Boston, MA
Robert & Amy Book, NJ
Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr. & Amy Taylor, NJ