Susanna J. Coffey (born 1949) is an American artist and educator. She is the F. H. Sellers Professor in Painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives and works in New York City.Sammet, Jennifer. "Riffing Off Symmetry: A Conversation with Susanna Coffey." Hyperallergic RSS. N.p., 26 Jan. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2014. She was elected a member the National Academy of Design in 1999.Susanna J. Coffey in AskArt.com
Life Coffey was born in New London, Connecticut in 1949. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree magna cum laude from the University of Connecticut in 1977 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Art in 1982.
Coffey's work investigates normative values of beauty and gender asking questions like "What is a beautiful appearance? Why do conventionally gendered images involve caricature? Can inchoate feeling-states be adequately portrayed?"
Coffey is best known for her paintings of heads―often self-portraits, such as her Self Portrait, Versace (Canal) Scarf in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Like many of her paintings, this 1996 self-portrait is a frontal view, lit from behind. Hearne Pardee describes her practice in the Brooklyn Rail:
Collections
Coffey's work is held at a wide range of institutions, including Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio, Yale University Art Gallery, the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham MA, the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, the Brauer Museum of Art in Valparaiso, Indiana, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawaii, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the National Academy of Design in New York City, the Rockford Museum in Rockford, Illinois, the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro, North Carolina and the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts.The artist's website
Awards Susanna Coffey has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. Coffey received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Artist x Artist award, a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, the Aeschylus Medal awarded by the city of Eleusis Greece, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Studio Program Award. Coffey has received honorary degrees from The University of Connecticut School of Fine Art and the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts.
Further reading Acoustiguide narration, The National Gallery of Art, on Judith Leyster’s Self Portrait Article, “Artists Quarantine With Their Art Collections” Stephen Maine, Hyperallergic, May 23, 2020 Book, Night Painting, Susanna Coffey MAB Books, editor Brice Brown, a selection of landscape paintings with writings by Dr. Carol Becker, Brice Brown, Jane Coffey, Jane Kenyon, Jennifer Samet and Mark Strand 2019 Book, 50 Contemporary Women Artists, editors John Goslee and Heather Zises, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2018 Two Coats of Paint Interview with Sangram Majumdar Review of Elemental by Hearne Pardee The Brooklyn Rail February 2014 Book, ″In Residence, Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth The Hood Museum of Art″, Dartmouth College, 2014 Review of From Life by John Yau, Hyperallergic November 25, 2012 Review of Apophenia by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, September 25, 2012 Review of Nocturne by John Goodrich, City Arts April 3, 2012 Review of Pavers, City Arts, John Goodrich, January 12, 2011 Book, ″Selected Contemporary American Figurative Painters″, Editor, Qimin Liu, Tianjin Peoples Fine Arts Publishing House, China, 2010 Review of Night Paintings 1995-2010, Jeremy Bliss, New City, Chicago, April 22, 2010 Catalog, ″Artist’s Response: Portraits and Self-Portraits″, from exhibition, Unexpected Reflections: The Portrait Reconsidered at Meridian Gallery, 2009, San Francisco CA, by Terri Cohn Review of Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009, The New York Times, Ken Johnson, July 22, 2009 Article, “Looking at Herself” Kathleen Edgecomb, The New London Day, December 8, 05 Review of Alpha Gallery show, Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, November 19, 2004 Review of Women of the Academy, Ken Johnson, The New York Times, Summer 2003 Catalog, Susanna Coffey: Recent Work, Strand, Mark, New York, André Emmerich, 2003 Catalog, Susanna Coffey, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, New York, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, 2001 Catalog Susanna Coffey, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, 2001 essay by Michael Rooks, Poem, "In Sky" by Susan Wheeler Catalog, Susanna Coffey Studio Art Exhibition Program, Dartmouth College, September, 1998 Essays by Michael Rooks and Eileen Myles
References
External links
Artists Quarantined with Their Art, Hyperallergic June 20th 2020 Interview with Erica Hess for the podcast I like Your Work WYBC Radio Interview: Brainard Carey with Susanna Coffey Interview on Gorky's Granddaughter Hyperallergic conversation with Susanna Coffey Susanna Coffey on Pierre Bonnard Catalog from Susanna Coffey's “Going to Ground” at the University of Tulsa Why Give a Name to It? by John Yau in Hyperallergic An Interview of Susanna Coffey with Rich Fisher on Tulsa Public Radio Susanna Coffey Studies the Nature of Portraiture by John Yau in Hyperallergic 4 Artists on Expressing Love Through Their Work on Artsy