Susan Weil

Susan Weil is a painter, printmaker, and book artist recognized as a pivotal female figure who expanded the horizons of Abstract Expressionism.

Biography of Susan Weil

Susan Weil was born in 1930 in New York. Weil's artistic journey took her to the Académie Julian in Paris and to Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a rural haven for emerging artists, composers, and choreographers. There, she often scoured campus dumps alongside Robert Rauschenberg in search of unconventional materials for their experimental works.

Moving to New York in 1949 with Rauschenberg, whom she briefly married, Weil entered the vibrant art scene that was rapidly evolving. She came of age within the heart of the New York School, surrounded by diverse cultural influences and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her contemporaries included Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

Weil stood out as a significant figure among this pioneering group of artists, renowned for their exploration of unconventional materials and techniques that would influence artists worldwide. Her introduction of the blueprint technique to Rauschenberg, through which she created life-size cyanotypes of human figures and foliage, left a lasting mark on his artistic approach.

Despite being active in New York during the peak of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Weil fearlessly ventured into figuration and realism, drawing inspiration from nature, literature, photographs, and personal experiences. Throughout her extensive career, she has consistently captured ephemeral aspects of time and motion, crafting multidimensional artworks where she fractures and reconstructs the picture plane. She also engages in ongoing experimentation with everyday materials such as found objects, metal, paper, Plexiglas, repurposed textiles, recycled canvas, and wood. Poetry and literature have always played a pivotal role in her artistic practice.

Susan Weil has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Her recent solo exhibitions include "Susan Weil: Moons" at Nine Gallery in Portland (2024), "Breaking Glass" at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in London (2023), "Susan Weil" at JDJ|The Ice House in Garrison, New York (2022), among others.

Currently, the artist luves and works in New York.