Photo: 2017
“Barbara Nessim is an artist whose daring and prolific work, spanning six decades, defies narrow categorization. Her artistic production has straddled fine art and illustration, pushing against, and reshaping the boundaries of the often-rigid separation between the two fields. With her artworks on paper informing her commercial illustrations, Nessim always begins with line or color, independent of medium, context or application. Her vibrant colorful imagery is figurative, conceptual, and deeply intuitive. Its power and enduring relevance lies in its fusion of skillful technique, social engagement, and pop culture resonance. A Bronx native, Nessim’s artworks are the story of the evolving gender equity and shifting cultural landscapes of New York City…”
“Supported early on by prominent illustrators and designers including Robert Weaver, Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Henry Wolf, and Robert Benton, Nessim graduated from Pratt in 1960 where she studied Graphic Art and Illustration. At a time in which students were encouraged to emulate Abstract Expressionism, Nessim made intimate paintings with narrative emphasis… Her non-traditional use of watercolor, monotype etching and lithography as well as embedded text in image, became signature features of both Nessim’s fine art and commercial illustration work…”
“The lengthy and impressive list of publications in which her illustrations have appeared include, New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, Glamour, Essence Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and Ms. Magazine. Many of her initial jobs in the 1960s were for self-styled “girlie” magazines such as Swank and Nugget, akin to Playboy, which offered Nessim surprising freedom and early exposure…”
“Alongside her artistic practice, Nessim’s academic career began at the School of Visual Arts in 1967, where she taught until leaving to chair the Illustration Department at Parsons School of Design in 1991. Her pioneering impulse propelled her to the forefront of computer-generated graphic art in the early 1980s, by way of a video residency at TIME Inc. and later through an affiliation with IBM. In the 1990s, her expansive Random Access Memories series, which treats issues of population growth, immigration, and diversity, positioned her among the first artists to drive illustrated book design into the digital sphere…”
Excerpts taken from bio written by Jessica Eisenthal for Barbara’s Stargirl show in 2021.
Nessim Through the Years
More about Nessim
