Jeannette Montgomery Barron

Life and work

Jeannette Montgomery Barron was born in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to New York in 1979 to study at the International Center of Photography. In 1982, she began a series of artist portraits, starting with painter Francesco Clemente. In 1984, gallerist Bruno Bischofberger assigned Montgomery Barron to photograph Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat at The Factory. There, Montgomery Barron met Keith Haring, Bianca Jagger, and Boy George, who became subjects in her portraiture series. These photographs were exhibited by Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in 1985 and published in her first monograph, Jeannette Montgomery Barron.

Montgomery Barron then collaborated with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Jorie Graham on a collection of still life photographs entitled Photographs and Poems, published by Scalo in 1998. Her following series of work, Mirrors, was published by Holzwarth Editions in 2004 and includes text by the celebrated author Edmund White. Twenty photographs taken on Montgomery Barron's visit to artist Keith Haring's studio in 1985 were published in her next monograph, Session with Keith Haring. In My Mother's Clothes, Montgomery Barron created a portrait of her late mother through still life images of her cherished clothing, shoes, and personal possessions. As her mother's struggle with Alzheimer's progressed, robbing her of any remembered past, Montgomery Barron began this visual album as a way of both sparking her mother's memories, and coping with her own sense of loss. My Mother's Clothes received praise from numerous publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker.

In Spring 2013, powerHouse Books published SCENE, a book of her portraits from the 1980s. My Year's in the 1980's New York Art Scene, was published in 2014 in conjunction with a major exhibition of Montgomery Barron's work at Collezione Maramotti

Monographs

My Years in the 1980's New York Art Scene (Silvana Editoriale)

Martine Bedin/ Jeannette Montgomery Barron, À petits pas (Bernard Chaveau Èditeur. Paris)

SCENE (powerHouse Books, 2013)

My Mother's Clothes (Welcome Books, 2010)

Sixteen Portraits (One Star Press, 1982–2002)

Session with Keith Haring (Holzwarth Publications, 2006)

Mirrors (Holzwarth Publications, 2004)

Photographs and Poems (Scalo, 1998)

Jeannette Montgomery Barron (Edition Bruno Bischofberger, 1990)

Selected Exhibitions

2017: A View of One's Own: Three Women Photographers in Rome: Esther Boise Van Deman, Georgina Masson and Jeannette Montgomery Barron

2016: Magazzino, Rome, Italy

2016: American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy

2015: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy

2013: Colette, Paris

2013: Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA

2011: Sèvres—Cité de la céramique, À Petits pas, vases de Martine Bedin et de Jeannette Montgomery-Barron

2010: Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia

2010: Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia

2008: ClampArt, New York

2005: ClampArt, New York

2004: Magazzino d'Arte Moderna, Rome

1999: Scalo, New York

1998: Scalo, Zurich

1998: Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia

1997: Staley-Wise Gallery, New York

1996: Magazzino d'Arte Moderna, Rome

1995: Sotheby's, Zurich

1990: Staley-Wise Gallery, New York

1989: Scalo, Zurich

1985: Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich

Selected Public and Corporate Collections

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

Kunsthaus, Zurich

McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California

The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Avon Inc. New York

Ralph Lauren, New York

Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich