Cynthia Bickley-Green
Lamentation, c. 2020
acrylic on canvas
60" x 144"
Cynthia Bickley-Green
Scarab, 1967
acrylic on unprimed canvas
43" x 63"
CB-002
Untitled, 1967-68
acrylic on unprimed canvas
66" x 84"
Ingue, 1967
acrylic on canvas
59" x 59"
Untitled, 1968
acrylic on canvas
approx. 48" x 60"
6:40 AM Cloudy Calm, 2013
acrylic on canvas
48" x 48"
Florence Cross, 2014
acrylic on canvas
42" x 42"
Clerk James Maxwell, 2014
acrylic on canvas
42" x 42"
7:30 AM Light from Right, 2013
acrylic on canvas
44" x 44"
Disturbance, 2020
acrylic on canvas
42" x 42"
Lifting Winter Weights, 2015
acrylic on canvas
42" x 42"
Clear Sky Waking, 2014
acrylic on canvas
24" x 24"
Directions/Layers, 2020
acrylic paint on Arches watercolor paper
12" x 16"
Delta/Lady Bug I, 2021
acrylic paint on Arches watercolor paper
12" x 16"
Where are we going?, 2022
acrylic on canvas
42" x 42"
What Gives You Hope?, 2021
acrylic on canvas
24" x 24"
Cynthia Bickley-Green studied art at La Brera, Milan, Italy, and in the studio of Italian Futurist painter Pippo Rizzo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. She holds BA and MA degrees in art from the University of Maryland and an MA from George Washington University in Higher Education and Human Development. In 1990 she finished her PhD in Art at the University of Georgia.
Bickley-Green was part of a cadre of Washington, DC, artists active in the late 1960s and 70s. During this time Washington Color School artists Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, Tom Downing, and Paul Reed exhibited in local galleries. She was a member of the steering committee for the first National Conference for Women in the Visual Arts in 1972 held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Bickley-Green's paintings have been exhibited in over 100 exhibitions and public collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; American University; and University of Maryland. Recently her work was displayed at the Elberson Fine Arts Center at Salem College, The Arts Club of Washington, the MGM Grand Resort and Casino at National Harbor in Maryland, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Her painting Yellow Miss is included the U. S. Art in the Embassies Program and has been shown in many locations in the world, most recently in 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
From Art of the State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina (2022).
She is presently a professor of art at East Carolina University where she has taught for 27 years. Her research and many publications explore the biology of art and the interaction of visual media and pedagogy and the development of social identities. She is the author of Art Elements: Biological, Global, and Interdisciplinary Foundations (2011).
In 2018, Bickley-Green's painting Scarab (1967) was featured in the show Full Circle, Hue and Saturation in the Washington Color School at the Luther Brady Art Gallery, Corcoran School of Art and Design, George Washington University. In 2020 her painting Entoptic Shapes-Downstream Animas was included in Front Burner: Highlights in Contemporary North Carolina Painting at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC. Her painting Lamentations (featured on the cover of the North Carolina Literary Review) is an announcement for the Front Burner exhibition and is reproduced on a billboard in the North Carolina Museum of Art sculpture garden. Bickley-Green's painting Waiting For Author (2014) was recently featured in the book Art of the State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina by Liza Roberts.
Bickley-Green's work is in the collections of the University of Maryland Art Gallery, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, US Art in Embassies, and the MGM Grand Resort & Casino at National Harbor
An arts festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual arts, re(FOCUS) includes works by Lee Krasner and Cynthia Bickley-Green. Both artists exhibited in the original festival, and we are excited to highlight them here.
As Washington D.C. emerged as an artistic center in the late 60’s with Washington Color School artists at the forefront, three pioneering female artists began their careers — Cynthia Bickley-Green, Joan Danziger, and Mimi Herbert. Each demonstrated a freedom of vision in the DC art scene, making their marks in the typically male-dominated fields of color field painting or sculpture. Now in their 80s, these women continue to innovate in their respective fields. All three artists are currently represented in major museums and collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the National Gallery of Art. While their names might not be widely recognized, their work is still highly visible throughout the District and their contributions helped advance the position of women in modern art.
Bethesda Fine Art is proud to present #Corcoran1970s, an exhibition celebrating the circle of abstract artists who showed, taught, and were affiliated with the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the 1970s. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an artistic center for Washington, D.C. artists, particularly abstractionists, during the 1970’s. Active in the Corcoran’s orbit were Washington Color School notables such as Leon Berkowitz, Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, Mimi Herbert, Dan Yellow Kuhne, Howard Mehring, Paul Reed, and Kenneth Young. While most showed in group shows, a select few, including Berkowitz, Davis, Mehring, Reed, and Young, had their own solo exhibitions.
Primacy: The Washington Color School, an exhibition curated by Dexter Wimberly, features paintings by nine eminent Washington Color School artists: Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Francis, Sam Gilliam, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Alma Thomas, and Kenneth V. Young. The origin of the Washington Color School is linked to a 1965 exhibition titled The Washington Color Painters, organized by Gerald Norland at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington D.C. Five of the six artists in the original 1965 Washington Color Painters exhibition are included in Primacy. Bethesda Fine Art is proud to have lent works by Cynthia Bickley-Green and Kenneth V. Young to this exhibition.
Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D. reviews #Corcoran1970s on East City Art.
This past month, Cynthia Bickley-Green was featured on an Eastern North Carolina TV network about her recent commission for the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. In the clip, Cynthia brings the news crew into her studio to view her artwork, Lamentation, which will be featured on a billboard for the museum.
One of Cynthia Bickley-Green's most recent paintings, Lamentation, will soon be featured on a billboard for the North Carolina Museum of Art. Lamentation reflects Bickley-Green's engagement with the recent social and political happenings this year. The black square in the upper left corner marks the death of George Floyd, while the dark triangle on the lower left-center of the composition is an abstracted coronavirus. On the lower right is a globe to represent the worldwide impact of these recent events.
In addition, reflecting her success in the academic art world, Bickley-Green's painting, Predella, is on the most recent cover of National Art Education Association News.
Cynthia Bickley-Green's work A Cautionary Tale for Niagara Falls: Cape Town, 2018, is on view at the Niagara Falls History Museum's exhibition Water for Life.
