Barbara Gardner

1923-2005

Barbara Gardner was born in 1923 in New Jersey and led a traditional life, working as a clerk and designer at an insurance company and as a suburban housewife. In 1960 she quit her job
and began to pursue her art full time.

It is the stunning contrast of the mundane exterior and vivid interior of Gardener’s life, so reminiscent of similar dualities in the life of Rene Magritte, that engages us and offers assurance that the high vision of surrealism may thrive as readily in New Jersey as in Belgium. That Gardner has studied her masters-Magritte, Delvaux, and de Chirico-is obvious. That she has created her own strong place, her own unique and visionary transformation, is obvious as well. We may glance at this triumph over the mundane adversities of life, and we all enlarged and ennobled by this victory.

The Art Career School in NY with Stephano Cusumano
NYU with Xanti Schawinsky
The New School in NY with Alexey Brodovitch, Jack Stewart and Art Kane.
Life Drawing with Mr. Simon at NYU
Sculpture with Chaim Gross at The New School
BS from Fairleigh Dickinson University

1974 Group show, Allied Artist of America, NY
1975 Group show, Gruenebaum Gallery, NY
1975 One person show, Gruenebaum Gallery
1976 Group show, Audubon Artists, NY
1977 Group show, 1st Biennial New Jersey Artists, Newark/New Jersey State Museum
1978 One person show, Petrenko Gallery, NY
1979 Group show, Summit Art Center, NJ
1979 Group show, Squibb Gallery, NJ
1984 Group show, Biennial NJ Artists, Newark/NJ State Museum
1991 One person show, Summa Gallery, NY