Lowell Nesbitt

(Baltimore, Maryland, 1933 - 1993)

North America, American

Lowell Nesbitt studied at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received his BFA in 1955. He then continued his studies at the Royal College of Art in London, where he focused on printmaking and stained glass. After a brief period abroad in the United States Army (1957-1958), Nesbitt returned to the United States and worked as a security guard at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. At the urging of fellow artist Robert Indiana, Nesbitt moved to New York City in 1963, where he rented a studio on 14th Street.

Nesbitt has been associated with the photorealist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s owing to his practice of working from photographs rather than life. Nesbitt is also unique in painting and printing almost exclusively in series. Birds, still lifes, and especially flowers, are the subject of multiple paintings and prints. As the artist explained, “It takes a series of pictures to drown in the image and to drown the image.” Nesbitt is perhaps best known for depicting single blooms spotlighted against a velvety-black background. The flowers alternately resonate with viewers as erotic, disturbing and lush.

Nesbitt’s work can be found in such public collections as the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Major exhibitions of his work were organized by the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1982) and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1975). Nesbitt’s flower portraits were featured in an edition of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 1980.

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