SUZANNE CAPORAEL was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1949. Her work derives from close observation of the natural world and the attempts—scientific and cultural—to define and control it. Observation coupled with research has resulted in groups of paintings related to trees, chemical elements, water, ice, time and place memory.
As noted in The New York Times, “Caporael’s paintings are a curious mix of the aesthetic and the conceptual...the paintings are sensuous and lyrical as well as rigorously formal.” Caporael continues to create paintings that both display and invoke a discipline of thought.
The artist earned her Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, CA. She had her first show at thirty-five, when then Director Paul Schimmel debuted her work at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now the Orange County Museum of Art). She was awarded a National Endowment grant in painting in 1986, and has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2009 she was a guest artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The artist’s prints are published in collaboration with Tandem Press, Madison, WI.
Her work is represented in many major museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; de Young Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, among others.
Suzanne Caporael lives and works in Islesboro, ME with her husband, novelist Bruce Murkoff.
SUZANNE CAPORAEL
Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1949
Lives and works in Islesboro, ME
EDUCATION
1979 MFA, Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, CA
1977 BFA, Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, CA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 “Proof,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2021 “Suzanne Caporael: The Nature of Things,” Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
“Book Eight,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2019 “Blue Uniform,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2017 “What Follows Here,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY
2015 "The Landscape," Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY
2014 “Suzanne Caporael: Recent Paintings,” Peters Project, Santa Fe, NM
2013 “Enough is Plenty,” Ameringer | McEnery |Yohe, New York, NY
2012 “Seeing Things,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY
2010 “The Memory Store,” Ameringer| McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY
2008 “Going,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
2007 “Roadwork,” Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY
2006 “Time,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
2005 “Reading Time,” Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY and St. Louis, MO
“Works on Paper,” Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
“A Decade,” Lemberg Gallery, Ferndale, MI
2004 “Tide Waters,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Estuaries,” Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
2003 “Littoral Drift,” Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY
“Recent Prints,” Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
2001 “Turnagain Arm and Other Cold Places,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
2000 “Melt: New Paintings,” Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1999 “Studies for Melt,” Karen McCready Fine Art,” New York, NY
1998 “The Elements of Pigment,” The Lemberg Gallery, Birmingham, MI; Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL; and Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1997 “Recent Paintings,” In Khan Gallery, New York, NY
“Suzanne Caporael,” SOMA Gallery, La Jolla, CA
1996 “The Five Kingdoms and The Periodic Table of Elements,” Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL; Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1994 “Paintings, from the Series Inside Trees and Living on Permafrost: Black Spruce,” Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1993 “Inside Trees,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
1992 “Second Nature,” Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1991 “Suzanne Caporael,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Paintings and Works on Paper,” Richard Green Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
“New Work,” Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1989 “Recent Paintings,” John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“New Paintings,” Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1988 “New Work,” Richard Gray Gallery/Superior Street, Chicago, IL
“Recent Work,” Harcus Gallery, Boston, MA; Krygier/Landau Contemporary Art, Santa Monica, CA
1987 “Recent Paintings,” John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1986 “Recent Paintings,” Krygier/Landau Contemporary Art, Santa Monica, CA
“California Viewpoints,” Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1985 “Suzanne Caporael,” Irit Krygier Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
“Summer 1985: Nine Artists” (nine one-person exhibitions), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
1984 “Suzanne Caporael,” Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 “On Tenterhooks,” Tandem Press Apex Gallery, Madison, WI
2021 “Summer Reflections,” Tandem Press Apex Gallery, Madison, WI
“Minted,” Addison/Ripley Fine Art, Washington, D.C.
2018 “Suzanne Caporael: Prints,” Tandem Press Apex Gallery, Madison, WI
“Known: Unknown,” New York Studio School, New York, NY
“Belief in Giants,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2017 “SITE/SIGHT,” Cross Contemporary Art, Saugerties, NY, curated by Ellen Kozak
“The Times,” The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY
“Oklahoma and Beyond: Selections from the George R. Kravis II Collection,” Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, OK
2016 "Beyond Likeness: Mapping the Self," Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
"The Other: Nurturing a New Ecology in Printmaking," Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL
2015 “Celebrating the Spectrum: Highlights from the Anderson Collection,” de Young Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
2014 “Color Rhythms,” Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
2011 “(Un)Natural Histories,” Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
2010 International Exhibition of Visual Arts, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
2008 “People and Places,” Atrium Gallery, St. Louis, MO
“New Prints: Spring 2008,” International Print Center, New York, NY
“Less is More,” 511 Gallery, New York, NY
2007 “Empty Nest: The Changing Face of Childhood in Art, 1880 to the Present,” Nathan A. Bernstein & Co, New York, NY, curated by Lowell Pettit
2006 “Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art,” Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005 “New Art New York: Reflections on the Human Condition,” Trierenberg Holding Inc., Traun, Austria
2003 “Pressure Points,” The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX
“Components,” Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
2002 “Linger,” Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY
“Plotting: A Survey Exhibition of Artists’ Studies,” Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL
2001 “On Language: Text and Beyond,” Center Galleries, Detroit, MI
2000 “Identities: Contemporary Portraiture,” Palmer Gallery, New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, Summit, NJ
“Watch,” Bona Fide Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Ellsworth Kelly and Suzanne Caporael,” Graystone Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
1999 “Retrospective of the Collection of David Teplitzki,” Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
“The Great Drawing Show,” Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“A Quiet Storm: Painting in Abstraction,” Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1998 “Cleveland Collects: Contemporary Art,” Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
“Hands on Color,” Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA
1996 “Between Reality and Abstraction,” NICA Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
“Rediscovering the Landscape of the Americas,” Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, NY
1995 “New Abstraction,” Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1993 “45th Annual Academy Purchase Exhibition,” American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York, NY
“Sea Fever,” Transamerica Pyramid Center, San Francisco, CA
1992 Inaugural Exhibition, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
“Selective Visions,” Transamerica Pyramid Center, San Francisco, CA
1991 “Group Show,” Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“Individual Realities in the California Art Scene,” Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
“Selections From the Peter Norton Collection,” Rand Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
“Presswork: The Art of Women Printmakers,” The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
1989 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
1988 “Land,” ACA Art Gallery, New York, NY
1987 Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Alumni Invitational,” Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, CA
“Avant-Garde in the Eighties,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Legion of Honor Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
AWARDS
2020 Fine Arts Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, NY
2009 Artist in Residence, Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT
1986 National Endowment for the Arts painting grant