Opening Reception: Meet the artist, Thurs., March 6, 2008, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Bill Beckley is an artist who has exhibited widely in America and Europe since 1970. His works are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim in New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
An important American contemporary artist, Bill Beckley is associated with various recent art movements, such as Story Art, Conceptualism and Photo-Narrative Art.
Beckley began exhibiting his photographs in the late 1960s, and was at once internationally recognized as the originator of Photo-Text art. He first showed in New York at the legendary 112 Greene Street Gallery with Gordon Matta-Clark, Louise Bourgeois and Barry La Va. Solo shows followed at the Hans Mayer Gallery and Konrad Fischer Gallery, both in Dusseldorf, Germany; Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne, Germany; Yvon Lambert in Paris; Lucio Amelio in Naples, Italy; Nigel Greenwood in London; and the John Gibson Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, and International Center of Photography in New York. He has been included in the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennial, and Documenta in Kassel, Germany. His works are found in important museums and private collections around the world.
As one of the first artists to use large-scale color photography in fine art, Beckley is an important influence on artists such as Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. Roberta Smith acknowledged Beckley's contribution in New York Times articles in 1992 and 2007.
