Susan Bee: Biography

Susan Bee is an artist living in Brooklyn and Valatie, NY. In 2024, "Susan Bee, Eye of the Storm: Selected Works 1981-2023," curated by Johanna Drucker, her first solo museum survey of paintings will open on August 23rd at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The show will run till November 17 and will accompanied by a full-length catalog with essays by Drucker, John Yau, and Raphael Rubenstein.

Bee has been represented by A.I.R. Gallery in NYC since 1997. She has had ten solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery and solo shows at Southfirst Gallery and Accola Griefen Gallery in NY. Bee has also had solo shows at the University of Pennsylvania, Odetta Gallery, Belmont University, Kenyon College, Columbia University, William Paterson College, the New York Public Library, Pratt Institute Library, Virginia Lust Gallery, and her work has been included in numerous group shows.

Bee’s artwork is in many public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Getty Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Bee has published eighteen artist’s books. She has collaborated with: Susan Howe, Charles Bernstein, Johanna Drucker, Regis Bonvicino, Jerome McGann, Rachel Levitsky, and Jerome Rothenberg. Off-World Fairy Tales, with stories and typography by Johanna Drucker was published by Litmus Press in 2020.

Bee is the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artist's Writings, Theory, and Criticism, Duke University Press, 2000, and the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online. Her artist’s book archive and the M/E/A/N/I/N/G Archive are at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Bee’s paintings are on over 50 book covers and her artworks, interviews, and writings have been included in numerous publications.

Bee’s work has been reviewed and featured in: Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, Artcritical, ArtSlant, The Forward, Huffington Post, Art Papers, Bomb, and Hyperallergic.

Bee has given presentations and artist’s talks at the Whitney Museum, Reina Sofia, Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, College Art Association, Queens Museum, NY Public Library, Parsons, The New School, Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, M.I.T., University of Pennsylvania, and at numerous other locations including in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Belgrade, Berlin, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, Israel, Cuba, New Zealand, Korea, India, and China.

She has a BA from Barnard College and a MA in Art from Hunter College. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in 2014 and has had fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. Bee has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Visual Arts, and Pratt Institute.

See CV for further information.