Nancy Haynes

Haynes is a conceptual artist.^[1] Her art-historical influences cite Marcel Duchamp, Mondrian, Dan Flavin, On Kawara and Ad Reinhardt,^[2] but as Marjorie Welish noted in her essay, “Nancy Haynes, A Literature of Silence”, Haynes’ also has influences from literature.

Welish states:

“Nancy Haynes has produced a series of breath-taking monotypes inspired by the work of Samuel Beckett. That her admiration for him is long-standing comes as no surprise to those viewers familiar with her painting. She is aesthetically in accord with Beckett's assumption of "the divine aphasia," or speechlessness, against which mark-making is inadequate (That Which Memory Cannot Locate, 1991-92). She evidently admires that same impulse toward (the Heideggarean) "inadequacy of language" in art other than her own (Robert Ryman's own homage to Beckett's, Ill Seen Ill Said, with its barely voiced "th" inscribed in illustration, for instance). Cognizant of Vladimir and Estragon's cosmic fretfulness, she conducts her own forays into elegant stuttering on the visual plane.”^[3]

In Haynes’ recent paintings, the canvases began to “evolve from a paler shade of a given pigment to a darker one, creating a horizontal movement that pulls the eye toward an unseen source of light.”^[4]

More notable works include her autobiographical color charts series (2005-2013), which employ swatches of color contained within grids, meant to give an autobiography of the artist.^[5]

Haynes began exhibiting her work in the late 1970s and has since held numerous solo exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions are below:

• Compressing Light, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany, 2025^[6]
• A madeleine dipped in ink, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria, 2022^[7]
• Paintings: to the poets, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria, 2017^[8]
• Nancy Haynes: this painting oil on linen, Regina Rex, New York, 2017^[9][10]
• Nancy Haynes: anomalies and non sequiturs, Regina Rex, New York, 2015^[11][12]
• Nancy Haynes: Recent Paintings, George Lawson Gallery, Los Angeles, 2012^[13]
• Selected Small Paintings, George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, 2020^[14]
• Dissolution, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, 2009^[15]
• Nancy Haynes, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria, 2006^[16]
• Nancy Haynes, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria, 2002^[17]
• Between Two Appearances, Stark Gallery, New York, 2000^{[additional citation(s) needed]}
• Nancy Haynes, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria, 1998^[18]

In addition to her painting career, Haynes has contributed to the academic field through teaching and lectures.^[6][19] She served as a visiting lecturer at Princeton University in 2000 and lectured at The Carpenter Center at Harvard University in 1992. ^[19] From 1986 to 1989, she was an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College in New York.^[19]

Haynes has been awarded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1995, The National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 and again in 1990, and the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1987.^[19]

Her work is included in major American and European museums, including:^[19]

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York^[20]
• The Museum of Modern Art in New York^[21]
• The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York^[22]
• The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York^[23]
• The Hood Museum of Art in Dartmouth, NH^[24][25]
• The Addison Gallery of American Art at the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA^[26]
• The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware^[27]
• The Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Netherlands^[28]
• The Kunstmuseum Den Haag at The Hague, Netherlands^{[additional citation(s) needed]}
• The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.^[29]
• The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX^[30]
• The Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, NC^[31]
• The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA^{[additional citation(s) needed]}
• The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA^[32]
• The Harvard Art Museums at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA^[33]
• The Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA^[34]
• The UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA^[35]

• Riley, Charles A. (1998). The Saints of Modern Art: The Ascetic Ideal in Contemporary Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Dance, Literature, and Philosophy. University Press of New England. pp. 101–103. ISBN 978-0-87451-765-1.

• Rachel Nackman on Nancy Haynes Archived 2018-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
• Elizabeth Donato on Nancy Haynes
• Overview of Nancy Haynes Work