Images of works by artist Betty Tompkins
Image of Artist Betty Tompkins

Betty Tompkins was, until recently, an art historically neglected figure, despite the significant contribution she made to the late 1960s / early '70s Photorealist movement. Often sexually explicit, her paintings have been refused entry into France in 1973, and were held at Japanese customs in 2006 after being designated as 'pornography'. For Handsome Young Doctor, Tompkins has painted two new canvases, in which a genital piercing recalls the rings of Saturn, and a precarious threesome resembles the docking starships in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). 


- Tom Morton from the press release for Handsome Young Doctor, Cubitt Gallery, London 2007 
Group Exhibitions
2012
In The Pink | Joe Sheftel Gallery | New York City
2011
No government No cry, a project by Kendell Geers | CIAP Actuele Kunst | Hasselt, Belgium

April 23 - June 26, 2011

The point of departure for the exhibition ‘No government No cry’ at CIAP in Hasselt from 23 April until 26 June 2011, is a manifesto written by artist Kendell Geers. Through poignant statements, he explores the often ignored link between political and natural revolutions, mourns the loss of our talent for revolution and the underlying causes, and gives us clues on how to re-member our inner alpha-bêtes to live a more true life.......

With special guests: Alec De Busschère, Anne Pajunen, Banksy, Belinda Blignaut, Betty Tompkins, Carl Abrahamsson, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Cendrine du Welz, Geoffroy de Volder, Heidi Voet, Ilse Ghekiere, Jesus Macconnell u no message me no mores, Kara Walker, Krööt Juurak, Laetitia Jeurissen, Laurent Devèze, Leif Elggren, Liz Kinoshita, Lucy Orta, Marina Abramovic, Mårten Spångberg, Monica Bonvicini, Nedko Solakov, Nicolas Bourriaud, Patrick Codenys, Paul McDevitt, Pierre-Olivier Rollin, Raoul Vaneigem, Raqs Media Collective, Renzo Martens, Sandy Williams, Siet Raeymaekers, Sinziana Ravini, Sophie Whettnall, Stephen Thompson, Tania Bruguera, Zin Taylor and others!

http://ciap.be/?p=1230

2011
Invitation To The Voyage | Algus Greenspon | NYC

My child, my sister, dream
How sweet all things would seem
Were we in that kind land to live together

– Charles Baudelaire

Kai Althoff, Austé, Daniel Burkhart, Rodolphe Bresdin, Edward Burne-Jones, Judith Bernstein, Julia
Margaret Cameron, Dan Colen, F. Holland Day, Robert Demachy, Louis Eilshemius, Emile Fabry,
Agustin Fernandez, Circle of Henry Fuseli, E’wao Kagoshima, Max Klinger, Jutta Koether, Ottokar
Landwehr, Louis Legrand, John Martin, Danny McDonald, George Minne, Carlo Mollino, Paul P.,
Elizabeth Peyton, Émile Constant Puyo, Odilon Redon, Felicien Rops, Fumi Sasabuchi, Anita Steckel,
Florine Stettheimer, Harold Stevenson, Emily Sundblad, Betty Tompkins, Iris Van Dongen, Jean-Luc
Verna, David Wojnarowicz, Katherina Wulff

9/10/11 -10/8/11

http://algusgreenspon.com/

2011
Grisaille | Luxembourg and Dayan | NYC

November 7, 2011 - January 14, 2012.  Curated by Alison Gingeras.  Catalog.  Essay by Alison Gingeras.

2010-11
___Lust and Vice:The Seven Deadly Sins From Durer to Naumann | Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee | Bern

October 15, 2010 - February 20, 2011

2010
Visible Vagina | Francis Naumann Gallery | NYC

This show is at Francis Naumann Gallery and David Nolan gallery.  Catalog Magdalena Abakanowicz, Ghada Amer, Beth B, Judie Bamber, Tracey Baran, Nancy Becker, David Beideman, Hans Bellmer, Mike Bidlo, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Brinker, Judy Chicago, Carol Cole, Maureen Connor, Gustave Courbet, Tee Corinne, John Currin, Sarah Davis, James Dee, Jay Defeo, Jim Dine, Leo Dohman, Marcel Duchamp, Carroll Dunham, Tracy Emin, India Evans, John Evans, Valie Export, Robert Forman, Neil Gall, Kathleen Gilje, Guerrilla Girls, Nancy Grossman, Barbara Hammer, Jane Hammond, Mona Hatoum, Stanley William Hayter, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, David Humphrey, Don Joint Paul Joostens, Pamela Joseph, Mel Kendrick, Elisabeth Kley, Jeff Koons, Mark Kostabi, Shigeko Kubota, Zoe Leonard, Sherrie Levine, Lee Lozano, Henri Maccheroni, Chema Madoz, Réné Magritte, Gerard Malanga, Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcel Mariën, André Masson, Sophie Matisse, Ana Mendieta, Allyson Mitchell, Cathy de Monchaux, Vik Muniz, Wangechi Mutu, Gladys Nilsson, Yoko Ono, Pablo Picasso, Chloe Piene, Richard Prince, Daniel Ranalli, Oona Ratcliffe, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Katia Santibanez, Peter Saul, Naomi Savage, Egon Schiele, Carolee Schneemann, Mira Schor, Michelle Segre, Tom Shannon, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Laurie Simmons, Kiki Smith, Julie Speed, Nancy Spero, Betty Tompkins, Kiyoshi Tsuchiya, John Tweddle, Tabitha Vevers, Douglas Vogel, Robert Watts, Hannah Wilke, Terry Winters, Beatrice Wood.

www.francisnaumann.com/EXHIBITIONS/VV/index.html

2010
Consider The Oyster | James graham & Sons | NYC

September 23 - October 30, 2010.  Curated by Ingrid Dinter." Inspired by MFK Fisher’s evocative prose, in particular her musings on the oyster, Dinter’s group exhibition is a dreamy take on things “oysterish.” The oyster, enigmatic of all ocean creatures with its tough exterior, is, like an artist, hard to pry open, yet worth the time it takes to shuck as inside its crusty shell hides not only the perfect mouthful of succulent, briny flesh, but the ever present possibility of discovering a pearl......The exhibition is its own oyster and in the space festooned with pearls, it becomes clear that, as MFK Fisher describes, an artist’s chance, like a mollusc’s, '…to live at all is slim, and if he should survive the arrows of his own outrageous fortune and in the two weeks of his carefree youth find a clean smooth place to fix on, the years afterward are full of stress, passion and danger.' "

read the CityArts review by Maureen Mullarkey here: http://www.dinterfineart.com/html/oyster_city_arts.html

 

 

2009-10
___elles@centrepompidou | CENTRE POMPIDOU, MUSÉE NATIONAL D'ART MODERNE | Paris

This show runs from May 27, 2009 to February 21, 2011. Curated by Camille Morineau.
http://www.toutpourlesfemmes.com/conseil/Centre-Pompidou-Collections-au.html?artpage=5-5

2009
Naked! Size Matters | Paul Kasmin Gallery | NYC
Curated by Adrian Dannatt and Paul Kasmin.
2009
Revolver | COCO | Vienna
2009
The Line Is A Lonely Hunter - Drawings In New Jerseyy | New Jerseyy | Basel
2008
How To Cook A Wolf: Part 1 | Dinter Fine Art | NYC
2007
Handsome Young Doctor | Cubitt Gallery | London
Curated by Tom Morton as his last show in the Cubitt Curatorial Program.  www.cubittartists.org.uk/hyd.html
2007
- 2008 La Plaissir au Dessin | Musee de Beaux Arts | Lyon
Curated by Jean-Luc Nancy.  Drawing is courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris.
2007
Into Position | Baurnmarkt | Vienna
IMAGES a project organised by spike art magazine

One artistic work leads several different lives: as an original, a reproduction, a story and a memory. The exhibition »Images« is concerned with the idea of the reproduction as a picture. Not as appropriation, but rather as part of everyday life: the reproduction of artistic works in catalogues, books, magazines, portfolios, press folders, archives and on websites, as well as their aesthetic structures. In the variety of ways they appear, these »secondary pictures«, which are omnipresent in the art world, constitute an enormous parallel exhibition above and beyond temporal and local conditions. In this sense, these »pictures of pictures» are not actually a secondary phenomenon at all, but a separate field with its own definable significance. »Images« asserts that parallel pictures are autonomous and have an aura of their own, which is derived from the particular features of their materials, colours and dimensions, but is also based on the paths these pictures take through the imagination and by the pragmatism of their distribution. www.re-title.com/exhibitions/IntoPosition.asp



2006
Exquisite Corpse-Cadavre Exquis | Mitchell Algus Gallery | NYC
Curated by Bob Nickas and Mitchell Algus
2006
Uncertain States of America | Serpentine Gallery | London and traveling
A collaboration between Betty Tompkins and Trisha Donnelly with Adam Putman and Shannon Ebner
2005
La Beauté de l’Enfer | Galerie Rodolphe Janssen | Brussels
2004
[Untitled/Nudes] | Printed Matter | NYC
Curated by Larry Clark
2004
Nouvelles Acquisitions, Oeuvres Contemporaines | Centre Pompidou, Musee National D'Art Moderne | Paris
Curated by Camille Morineau.
2003
It Happened Tomorrow | Biennale de Lyon | Lyon
Curated by Bob Nickas, Anne Pontegnie & the Consortium
Copyright © 2007 Betty Tompkins, All Rights Reserved