Louis Fratino (born 1993) is an American visual artist. He works across painting, drawing and sculpture. His works centre around domestic scenes and contemporary queer life.
Early life and education
Fratino was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1993; the second of five children. His parents are Italian immigrants. His mother worked for the US Census Bureau, and retired early. His father was a construction worker. He grew up near the town of Deale, Maryland.
Early influences on his art, and his approach to painting came from visits to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. In high school he read Charlotte Mullins' book Painting People, which exposed him to artists including Nicole Eisenman, Ridley Howard and Dana Schutz, which made him realise that "there was this whole world of people who were looking at things I’d seen in museums – but who were making work today", which excited him.
In 2015, Fratino graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.
In 2014, Fratino was selected to participate in the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship at Yale Summer School of Art and Music, Norfolk, Connecticut. From 2015-2016, Fratino was a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Painting and Printmaking, to study in Berlin.
Work Fratino's work centre around domestic settings, contemporary queer life and the male body. As art critic Roberta Smith wrote, his paintings are "hot with the pleasure of lying-around-the-house domesticity, of shared privacy."
Fratino paints from memory. His early paintings were of his siblings, parents and childhood home.
Fratino has also created several still lifes, particularly of tables.
Fratino is interested in the genres of painting (still life, landscape, reclining nude) and playing with these recognisable motifs.
Fratino's work is influenced by F.N. Souza, Duncan Grant, Bhupen Khakhar
Writer Durga Chew-Bose noted Fratino's debt to Cubist still life. Interview Magazine described his work as "neo-Cubism meets neo-Fauvism meets such radical American painting pioneers as Georgia O’Keeffe and Marsden Hartley".
Career In 2016, after completing his training in Berlin, Fratino moved to New York City.
In 2018, Fratino worked in Paris. There, he had his first solo exhibition, Heirloom, at Galerie Antoine Levi. Also in 2018, Antwaun Sargent, writing in The New York Times, grouped Fratino with other gay figure artists committed to depicting "the mostly unseen interior lives" of their subjects.
Inspired by Picasso, Matisse, and other Modernists, Fratino began working in soft pastel on raw linen.
In 2020, Fratino took up printmaking, working with printmaker Gregory Burnet to create a series of large copperplate etchings.
In 2021, Fratino was due to have a solo show at Des Moines Art Centre in Iowa. However, after Fratino had insisted the show included his work New Bedroom, which depicts two naked men having sex, the show was cancelled.
In 2024, Fratino was included in the 60th Venice Biennale. He showed his work I Keep My Treasure in My Ass. This title was taken from the 1977 book Towards a Gay Communism. The work depicts Fatino giving birth to himself through his own rectum.
In 2026, David Zwirner Gallery began representing Fratino. He has a show at their London gallery in 2026, inspired by Edward Burra's The Torturers (1935).
Personal life Fratino came out as a gay man during his junior year at MICA in 2014. His family was accepting of his sexuality. In 2021, he was in a relationship with sculptor Thomas Barger, and the two shared a studio.
Fratino lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Exhibitions
Solo YearTitleInstitutionLocationRef2016ReasonsPlatform GalleryBaltimoreWith everyoneThierry Goldberg GalleryNew York2017Own, OnlyMonya Rowe GallerySt. AugustineSo, I've got youThierry Goldberg GalleryNew York2018HeirloomGalerie Antoine LeviParisNight and DayJeff Bailey GalleryHudson, New York2019Come Softly to MeSikkema Jenkins & Co.New YorkNudissimaAntoine LeviParis2020MorningSikkema Jenkins & Co.New York2021Growths of the earthCiaccia LeviParis2022New Prints and DrawingsMilanDie bunten TageGalerie Neu GmbH & Co.Berlin2023In bed and abroadSikkema Jenkins & Co.New YorkLouis FratinoLitografia BullaRome2024SaturaCentro Pecci ExhibitionsPrato2025La scorzaGalerie NeuBerlinSpotlight: Louis FratinoFLAG Art FoundationNew York2026ProseDavid ZwirnerLondon
Duo YearTitleWithInstitutionLocationRef2017Matisse + FratinoHenri MatisseCabinet PrintempsDüsseldorf2018Angela Dufresne and Louis Fratino: GlazedAngela DufresneMonya Rowe GalleryNew York2021Louis Fratino & Tony FeherTony FeherSikkema Jenkins & Co.2026Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light AgainHenri MatisseBaltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore
Group
YearTitleInstitutionLocationRef2022A Place for MeICA BostonBoston202460th Venice BiennaleVenice
Collections Fratino has work in public collections, including:
Whitney Museum, New York Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Art Institute of Chicago Baltimore Museum of Art British Museum, London Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), Paris Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Morgan Library & Museum, New York Museum Brandhorst, Munich Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego Museum of Modern Art, New York Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Portland Museum of Art, Maine RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Publications
References
Further reading