American artist Ross Bleckner was born in 1949 in Brooklyn. He lives and works in New York. He studied at New York University, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1971. He went on to achieve a Master of Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts in 1973. He is known as a painter and his work is often large scale. Ross Bleckner’s first solo exhibition took place in 1975 at the Cunningham Ward Gallery.
Bleckner’s art uses symbolic imagery and many of his paintings have several focal points. His work has often explored themes of memory, loss and change, and many pieces seek to address the subject of the AIDS epidemic. Small Count, created in 1980, is one such piece, which depicts white dots on a black canvas. The dots represent the white blood cells attacked by the disease.
Bleckner’s work can be found in galleries and collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Collezione Maramotti in Italy and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 1995, the Guggenheim held a retrospective of his works covering the previous 20 years of exhibitions.
