Patrick Webb (artist)

Patrick Webb
Born1955
New York, New York, United States
NationalityAmerican
EducationYale University, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art
Known forPainting
AwardsJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Academy Museum, National Endowment for the Arts, Ingram Merrill Foundation
WebsitePatrick Webb

Patrick Webb (born 1955) is an American artist who has portrayed contemporary queer experience through representational narrative paintings.[1][2][3] He is best known for his "Punchinello" paintings, begun in the early 1990s, which feature a gay "everyman" based on the Italian commedia dell'arte stock character, Pulcinella.[4][5][6] Art historians Jonathan D. Katz and Jonathan Weinberg place Webb among artists who that gave voice to the loss and grief associated with the AIDS epidemic by looking beyond the message-heavy activist art and anti-expressive postmodernism of the 1980s to reinvigorated art-historical narrative traditions.[1][2][7] Writers note his work for its classically influenced technique and pathos in fleshing out fears, fantasies, experiences and social dichotomies between self and Other, individual and collective, personal and sociocultural.[8][9][10] He draws on pictorial strategies from old masters as well as modern artists such as Balthus, Jacob Lawrence, Philip Guston and the magic realist Jared French, building scenarios out of architecturally structured compositions, carefully placed elements and precise gestures.[11][12][13]

Patrick Webb, Punchinello in America, oil on canvas, 108" x 255", 1995.

Webb has received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016) and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Academy Museum, among others.[14][15] He has been a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn since 1995 and lives with his husband, a psychoanalyst, in New York City.[16][9][17]

  1. ^ a b Katz, Jonathan. "Jonathan Katz Discusses Art Related to the AIDS Crisis," ARTnews, April 14, 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Weinberg, Jonathan. Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art, New York: Abrams Books, 2005, p. 173–5. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  3. ^ Casals, Gonzalo and Noam Parness (eds.). Queer Holdings: A Survey of the Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection, Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2020. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  4. ^ Fitzpatrick, Laurie. "Punchinello In America," Art & Understanding, October 1995.
  5. ^ Taylor, Alex. "David Carbone, Nancy Grimes & Patrick Webb," ARTnews, January 2009.
  6. ^ Cohen, David. "Punchinello Hits the Gym," The New York Sun, September 24, 2010. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  7. ^ Pollack, Barbara. "Protest, Memorial: AIDS in the Art World," ARTnews, May 2014. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  8. ^ Greco, Stephen. "Patrick Webb's Adventures With Punchinello," POZ, December 1996–January 1997. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  9. ^ a b Gambone, Philip. "Patrick Webb: The Heroic Journey of Punchinello," Provincetown Arts Magazine, 2012, p. 86–9.
  10. ^ Taylor, Sophie. "Patrick Webb on Bodies, Desire, and Punchinello," Art Dealer Street, March 2019. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  11. ^ Goodrich, John. "Patrick Webb: Punchinello as Other and Caren Canier," City Arts, September 14, 2010, p. 12.
  12. ^ Izaguirre, Mafe. "Intimacies: Patrick Webb," ROOM, October 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
  13. ^ Visual AIDS. Patrick Webb: Tinker Tailor Paintings, Events. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
  14. ^ Greenberger, Alex. "John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Announces 2016 Fellowships," ARTnews, April 6, 2016. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  15. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Patrick Webb, Fellows. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  16. ^ Pratt. Patrick Webb, Faculty. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  17. ^ Fulcher, Susannah Elisabeth. "Patrick Webb and the Art of Punchinello," Provincetown Independent, August 6, 2020. Retrieved March 24, 2021.