Polly, Minou and Eon, 1979

Will Barnet (1911-2012) was an American painter and printmaker born in Beverly, Massachusetts the son of a Russian immigrant. He became interested in art at a very young age, and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and in 1930 studied at the Art Students' League of New York, eventually becoming an instructor there. Known for his printmaking, most of his works document his own life including his wife, children and pets, integrating the personal and universal. The flat linear surfaces of his works hint at abstraction. His first works can be categorized as social realism because he set out to depict the struggles of those most affected by The Depression. In the 1940s Barnet became a key artist in the Indian Space Painting movement which was based on the abstract art of Native Americans and was also influenced by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. This was a natural move since Barnet had always been influenced by Picasso. However by the 1960s Barnet reverted back to his original style. Barnet's artistic career was defined in that it, according to Doty, "has always gone beyond the limitations of modern art because his work affirms a faith in life." The artist 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, The Montclair Art Museum, The Boca Raton Museum of Art, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art.