Thursday, May 25, 2023
We could not be more honored to announce that this year's summer artwork is the creation of our dear friend and colleague of many years, Brian Cohen. Six of Brian's watercolors (2011-2016) will be incorporated into our season materials, including this commemorative poster. (To purchase a poster, write to us at info@yellowbarn.org.)
"Shut your eyes, wait, think of nothing. Now, open them ... one sees nothing but a great colored undulation...an irradiation and glory of color. This is what a picture should give us…a colored state of grace." (Paul Cezanne)I had been working in black and white for over twenty years before returning to my earlier infatuation with color. My watercolors are done on site, usually fairly quickly. I apply paint into wet paper, timing the drying of the paper as I lay in new washes of color. Painting in the landscape lets me sit happily observing light, color, and shape, simplifying or obscuring detail in favor of larger forms and the broader swell of color. I aim for a “color chord" or harmony that speaks of time, light, and distance all at once.—Brian Cohen
About the Artist
Brian D. Cohen is an educator, printmaker and painter. He founded Bridge Press in 1989 to further the association and integration of visual image, original text, and book structure. His books and etchings are held by major private and public collections throughout the country, including his artist book of Pierrot Lunaire, which he created in 2003 to accompany a performance of Schoenberg's work at Yellow Barn. Brian was also part of Beethoven InSight, a group of four local artists brought together by Yellow Barn to create a body of work in honor of, and in response to, Beethoven's music and his creative process in honor of the composer's 250th birthday.
Artist’s books and prints by Brian D. Cohen have been shown in over forty individual exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Fresno Art Museum, and in over 200 group shows. Cohen's books and etchings are held by major private and public collections throughout the country, including Yale, Harvard, Brown, and Stanford Universities, Middlebury, Smith, Wellesley, Swarthmore, and Dartmouth Colleges, the University of Vermont, The New York Public Library, The Library of Congress, and the Philadelphia and Portland (Oregon) Museums of Art, as well as the United States Ambassador's residence in Egypt. Brian was the first-place winner of major international print competitions in San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC., was awarded the Best Book in Show at the Pyramid Atlantic Book Fair, and has received grants from the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Community Foundation. He was the Dean of Faculty at the Putney School, and the founding director of the Putney School Summer Programs from 1987 until 2001, and was the founding artistic director of the Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction, Vermont. He is the illustrator of two popular natural science books Reading the Forested Landscape, and The Granite Landscape, and is a frequent contributor of artwork to literary reviews and other publications, including the Paris Review. A book of his work, Brian D. Cohen: Etchings & Books, was published in 2001. He was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with high honors from Haverford College and completed his Master's degree in Painting at the University of Washington. Brian is an avid collector of books and prints, rides motorcycles, and plays classical viola.