Works by Jill Moser
Jill Moser is an American abstract artist whose work explores the intersection of “painting, writing and the animated image.”
She lives and works in New York City.
Education
Moser earned her B.A. from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1978, and her M.F.A. from Hunter College, New York, in 1981.
She has been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowship and a Max Beckmann Scholarship in Painting from the Brooklyn Museum.
She has taught at Princeton, Virginia Commonwealth University, and several other prestigious institutions.
Technique
Moser has an interdisciplinary practice that includes painting, printmaking, drawing and collage.
Her printmaking includes a diverse array of techniques, such as lithograph, etching, monoprint, intaglio, and screen printing.
Her work can be understood in relation to the history of written language—marks that carry meaning.
Her brush marks are lyrical, gestural and calligraphic.
The lines and forms at first appear spontaneous, yet they evolve through a methodical, indexical process.
Moser constructs her compositions in terms of figures on a ground. The surfaces are layered and textured, creating a sense that the lines, marks and figures are suspended in dimensional space.
Color and tone add emotional and visual weight to the work, creating pictures that are at the same time self-referential, revelatory of the process of their making, and open to the interpretation of viewers.
Inspiration
Moser is inspired by languages, whether written, visual, indexical, or gestural.
She seeks balance similar to that sought by a poet—between conveying enough meaning that the viewer has a guided revelatory experience, and allowing enough room for surprise during the creation and presentation of the work that additional layers of meaning can emerge.
She also finds inspiration in such things as the language of filmmaking, the history of symbology, and the collaborative process, for example inviting writers to contribute texts that Moser then interprets into abstract visual compositions.
Relevant Quotes
In their article about Moser on RomanovGrave.com, Fintan Boyle and Jennie Nichols wrote, “the sign, the word, the utterance, the shot, the mark as not transparent, but as sites of contested possibilities drenched in unending layers of connotation. It is this particular filtering of language and sign making that shaped Moser’s early work. And language, as writing, as graphic icon, as bearer of meaning, as a bundle of loose lipped conventions we all share and trade in has always, and continues to be a model in Moser’s work.”
Exhibitions
Moser has exhibited extensively around the world, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
Collections
Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and many others.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
Syntax: Drawings 1993-1995, Lennon Weinberg Inc., New York, NY
2017
play replay, Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY
2016
Paintings and Prints, Heather Gaudio, New Canaan, CT
Hold to Drift, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA
2015
A Decade of Painting, Bentley Gallery, Phoenix, AZ
2014
New Paintings and Works on Paper, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
A Suite of Sixteen Street Drawings, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, NY
2012
New Paintings, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
2011
New Paintings, James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Conversation, Heriard-Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LO
Stills, Dubner Moderne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2010
Editions, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
New Paintings and Prints, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
2009
Sixteen Street,Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
2007
New Paintings, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
New Work, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
2006
Naming Game, Bentley Projects. Phoenix, AZ
Naming Game, Fine Arts Galleries, URI, Kingston, RI
2005
New Drawings, Studio Caparrelli, London, United Kingdom
Naming Game, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA
Naming Game, Westby Gallery, Rowan University, NJ
2004
Parings, osp gallery, Boston, MA
2003
Naming Game, Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2001
New Work, Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2000
Works on Paper, Kate Ganz Gallery, New York, NY
1999
Recent Work, Jan Maiden Fine Arts, Columbus, OH
1999
Topographies, Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, Lima, Peru
1998
Topographies: Paintings, Danese Gallery, New York, NY
1996
North Fork Drawings, Wynn Kramarsky, New York, NY
1994
Paintings & Drawings, Black + Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
1987
Drawings, Damon Brandt Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018
18-3838, Heather Gaudio Fine Arts, New Canaan, CT
2017
Exposicao Arte Collaborativa, Galeria Via Thorey, Vitoria, Brazil
Citings/Sightings, Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY (curated)
2016
A Big Enough Umbrella, Planthouse, New York, NY
The Last Picture Show, James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2015
Marks Made: Prints by American Woman Artists from the 1960’s to the Present, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL
Salon du Dessin, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
Line: Making the Mark, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
2014
Pouring It On, Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
2013
Playing with Process: Explorations in Experimental Printmaking, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
How You Gonna Get Back to Jersey, Planthouse, New York, NY
Neo Chroma, Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2011
Au Plaisir du Livre, Librairie Auguste Blaizot, Paris, France
Extravagant Drawing, Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City, NY
Fresh Paint, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA
2010
Between Picture and Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting, Curated by Tom Huhn Isabel Taube, Visual Arts Gallery at the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
Ends and Means, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. New York, NY
The White Album, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
See Through Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY
2009
Before Again, Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY
Drawing Itself Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT
On, Of or About: 50 paper works, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
New Prints 2009/Spring, International Print Center NY, New York, NY
Beneath the Seen, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
Jill Moser/Lucinda Cobley, El Centro College, Dallas, TX
2008
Flow Chart, Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY (curated)
2007
The Unseen, Lee Gallery, Clemson University, Clemson, SC
New Prints 2007/ Spring International Print Center NY, New York, NY
Small is Beautiful, Flowers, New York, NY
2006
Action Precision, Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY Au Courant, Bentley Projects, Phoenix, AZ Getting it ‘right’, osp gallery, Boston, MA
2006
Opening Group Show, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, TX
2005
New Prints 2005/Winter, International Print Center NY, New York, NY
2004
Masters of the Obvious, Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
From Abstraction to Minimalism: Selections, Bradbury Gallery, Fowler Center, Arkansas State University, Fayetteville, AK
2003
Supercool, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY
Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Define Line, Metaphor Contemporary Arts, Brooklyn, New York, NY
Line Dancing, Islip Museum of Art, Islip, NY
2002
Drawn From A Family: Contemporary Works on Paper, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
2001
Painting Abstraction II, New York Studio School, New York, NY Lines, Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2000
New York-Classicism-Now, Hirschl & Adler Gallery, New York, NY Snapshot, Baltimore Museum of Contemporary Art, Baltimore, MD
1997
After The Fall: Aspects of Abstract Painting Since 1970, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY
Drawing From Life, Stark Gallery, New York, NY
1996
Figuration Forward: Jill Moser/ Catherine Lee, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
1995
Drawings from the Agnes Gund Collection, The Century Association, New York, NY
1994
Group Show, John McEnroe Gallery, New York, NY
Matter Matters, Proctor Art Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
1993
Black & White Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The Return of the Cadavre Exquis, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
1992
Slow Art: Painting in New York Now, PS 1, Long Island City, NY
Persistence of Painting, Kohn Pederson Fox, New York, NY
1991
Recent Acquisitions, National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.
1989
American Art Since WW II: Prints & Drawings, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1987
Recent Acquisitions: Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Art on Paper, The Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC
1986
Group Show, Foxley Leach Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Art/Work, Bond Gallery, New York, NY
1985
Group Exhibition, Damon Brandt Gallery, New York, NY
1984
Selections 25, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
1983
The Black & White Show, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
Boyle, Fintan and Nichols, Jennie, “Studio Visit: Jill Moser” romanovgrave.com, March 2018.
Carey, Brainard, “Jill Moser Interview,” Yale Radio, https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/jillmoser/, May 2017
Adams Weinberg, Jill, “Play, Replay”, Exhibition Brochure, 2017
Major Jackson and Jill Moser, “Urban Renewal: A Painter and a Poet Collaborate”, The Southampton Review, Volume X, No. 2, (pages 42-49) Summer/Fall 2016
Hirsch, Faye. “A Seemingly Effortless Gesture is Choreographed into an Emptied Field”, Art in Print, Volume 5, Number 6, 2016
Marks Made: Prints by American Women Artists from the 1960’s to the Present, catalog of the exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, 2015. (p. 94,95) 2015
Kedmey, Karen, “Jill Moser Tempers Control and Chaos in Abstract Paintings”, Artsy.com. January 2015
Westfall, Stephen. “Caught in the Act”, exhibition brochure, Lennon, Weinberg, 2012.
McAdam, Alfred. “Jill Moser at Lennon, Weinberg”, ARTnews, Summer 2012.
Ross, Alex. Review of New Paintings at James Kelly Contemporary, Visualartsource.com, Spring 2011.
Moser, Jill. “Collaborating on the Introvert”. NYFA Current: artists on art, NYFA.com March 30, 2011.
Champa, Judith Tolnick. Extravagant Drawing, Dorsky Gallery, Curatorial Programs, 2011. (p.3)
Thomson, Steven. “Serif Embedded in Swirls,” culturemap.com, December 2010.
Taube, Isabel and Huhn, Tom. Between Picture and the Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting, Exhibition catalog. Visual Arts Press, Ltd. 2010. (p. 61)
Art At Lincoln Center – The Public Art and List Print and Poster Collections, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2009, (p. 210.)
Holzer, Stacey. “Lines of Flirtation,” visualseen.com, Fall 2009.
Interview with Meghan Hendley, The Front Line, KUHF, Houston National Public Radio, September 2009.
Maul, Tim. Sixteen Street, exhibition catalog, Wade Wilson Art, Houston, Texas: 2009.
560 Broadway: A New York Drawing Collection at Work, 1991-2006, Yale University Press, 2008. (pgs. 31, 58, 59)
Pankey, Eric, The Pear as One Example- New & Selected Poems 1984-2008, cover art, Ausable Press, 2008.
Wilkin, Karen. “At the Galleries,” The Hudson Review, Spring 2008
Hirsch, Faye. “Jill Moser at Lennon, Weinberg”. Art in America, April 2008.
Hu, Tung-Hui. Mine, cover art, Ausable Press, 2008
“Jill Moser: New Paintings,” Art and Living, Fall 2007.
Morton, Julia. “Art More or Less,” New York Press, November 14, 2007.
Taubman, Lara. “Blue is the Color of Infinity: A Studio Visit with Jill Moser,” artcritical.com, November 2007.
Grant, Daniel. “Major Museums Acquire the Abstract Art of Jill Moser,” ARTnewsletter, September 18, 2007.
Cunningham, Meredith. “Jill Moser at Wade Wilson Gallery”, artifice.blogspot.com, March 3, 2007.
Devine, John. “Jill Moser at Wade Wilson”, Glasstire.com, February 2007.
Farnell, Cynthia. “Jill Moser: Naming Game”, Art New England, October/November 2006.
Baker, R.C. Review of Action Precision, The Village Voice, July 28, 2006.
Van Siclen, Bill. Review of Naming Game at URI, The Providence Journal, July 20, 2006.
Norris, Douglas. Review of Naming Game, South County Independent, July 14, 2006.
Cohen, David. “The Afterlife of an Ideal”, review of Action Precision at Lennon, Weinberg, The New York Sun , June 29, 2006.
Ryan, Dinah. “Jill Moser: Naming Game”, Art Papers, March/April 2006.
Wei, Lilly. Naming Game, exhibition catalogue, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, Westby Gallery, Rowan University, NJ and Main Gallery, University of Rhode Island: 2005.
Pounds, Kristen I. “Jill Moser: Parings”, Art New England, February/March 2005.
McQuaid, Cate. “Line Items”, The Boston Globe, November 12, 2004.
Westfall, Stephen. “Parings”, exhibition brochure, osp Gallery, Boston, MA: 2004.
Princenthal, Nancy. Masters of the Obvious, exhibition catalogue, Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA: 2004.
New American Painting, Number 50, Volume 9, Number 1, January 2004.
Fox, Catherine. "Circular Thinking". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. January 18, 2002.
Drawn from a Family: Contemporary Works on Paper, exhibition catalog, Colby College Museum of Art, ME (pg. 56, 57)
Moos, David. "Orbit", Jill Moser: New Work, exhibition invitation, Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA: 2001.
Volk, Gregory. "Jill Moser at Kate Ganz", Art in America , July 2001.
Wei, Lily. "Jill Moser: Works on Paper ", Art News, April 2001.
Goodman, Jonathan. "Jill Moser: Works on Paper at Kate Ganz ", Art on Paper, March/April 2001.
Princenthal, Nancy. “Sightlines”, Jill Moser: Works on Paper, exhibition catalogue, Kate Ganz USA, NYC:2000.
Bloemink, Barbara and Greg Hedberg. New York-Classicism-Now, exhibition catalogue, Hirschl & Adler Gallery, NYC: 2000. (pgs. 44, 45, cat 39)
Wei, Lily. After The Fall: Aspects of Abstract Painting Since 1970 , exhibition catalogue, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY: 1997. (pg. 82, 142)
Tableau : Territories Actuel/ New Territories in Painting , Ecole regionale Des Beaux-Arts de Valence, France: 1997.
Smith, Roberta, "Drawing from Life", The New York Times, February 7, 1997.
Brenson, Michael. North Fork Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Wynn Kramarsky, NYC: 1996.
Van Siclen, Bill, "Two NY Artists at URI", Providence Journal, January 1996.
Faxon, Alicia, "Jill Moser & Catherine Lee", ART New England, June/July 1996.
Tolnick, Judith, Figuration Forward: Jill Moser & Catherine Lee, brochure, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Rhode Island, 1996.
Douglas, Olivia W., "Jill Moser at Black & Greenberg", ARTnews, February 1995.
Wei, Lilly, "Jill Moser at Black & Greenberg", Art in America, April 1995.
Wilkin, Karen, "At the Galleries", Partisan Review, Spring 1995.
Morgan, Robert C., "Drawing Deep", Cover Magazine, November 1994.
Adams, Brooks, "Slow Art at PS 1", Art in America, October 1992
1992
New York Foundation for the Arts, Painting Fellowship
1978-79
Max Beckmann Scholarship in Painting, Brooklyn Museum, NY