Sunrise

Sunset

A 30-second online art project:

Peter Burr, Sunshine Monument

Learn more

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

Skip to main content

Joan Snyder
1940–

Introduction

Joan Snyder (born April 16, 1940) is an American painter from New York. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow (1974).

Snyder first gained public attention in the early 1970s with her gestural and elegant "stroke paintings," which used the grid to deconstruct and retell the story of abstract painting. By the late seventies, Snyder had abandoned the formality of the grid. She began more explicitly incorporating symbols and text, as the paintings took on a more complex materiality. These early works were included in the 1973 and 1981 Whitney Biennials and the 1975 Corcoran Biennial.

Often referred to as an autobiographical or confessional artist, Snyder's paintings are narratives of both personal and communal experiences. Through a fiercely individual approach and persistent experimentation with technique and materials, Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting, inspiring generations of emerging artists.

Snyder currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Woodstock, New York.

Wikidata identifier

Q6205466

View the full Wikipedia entry

Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Accessed April 12, 2024.

Country of birth

United States

Roles

Artist, miscellaneou, painter

ULAN identifier

500018221

Names

Joan Snyder

View the full Getty record

Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed April 12, 2024.