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Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Will Barnet is more often claimed by Maine, Pennsylvania, and of course New York. His career as an artist and America’s foremost printmaker has evolved from 1930’s “social realism” to 1940’s “cubism” to 1950’s “geometric abstraction” based upon American Indian motifs and since 1961 “figurative realism”.
Barnet studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and in 1930 studied at the Art Students League of New York – beginning his long association with the school. In 1936 he became official printer for the Art Students League and later instructed students in the graphic arts. He taught at Yale and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
The Harmon-Meek Gallery has represented Barnet since 1973 and has had solo exhibitions since 1974. His works are part of virtually every major public collection in the United States, including, the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has been the subject of over eighty solo exhibitions held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design Museum, the National Museum of American Art, Montclair Art Museum, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art among others. The most recent museum acquisition was a 1940’s oil “Old Man’s Afternoon” by the Montclair Art Museum arranged by the Harmon-Meek Gallery.
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