Jack Balas
Grid Study, Appaloosa
Oil and Enamel on Board
Inscribed verso, dated 1997-99 and hand signed l.l.
Sight: 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.), Frame: 26 x 50 x 2 in. (65.4 x 127 x 5.1 cm.)
Jack Balas is an artist originally based in Chicago and Los Angeles, who divides his time between painting, drawing and photography, cross-referenced at times with writing and other media . A recipient in 1995 of an Individual Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York), the Denver Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. A portfolio of his paintings "Today I Drove Along the Rio Grande" was published in issue #120 of The Paris Review (New York). Jack Balas is an artist whose work primarily includes painting, drawing and photography. After earning his BFA and MFA in sculpture from Northern Illinois University, Balas moved from the Chicago area to Los Angeles, where he worked as a cross-country art shipper, driving between Los Angeles and New York on a route that regularly took him through the cowboy western landscapes that have come to define much of his work. Balas began producing paintings of athletic young men, annotated and layered with numbers, illustrations, personal anecdotes, and other disparate elements that offer a depiction of idealized masculinity in America through the lens of Balas's personal experiences; as well as a contemporary counterpoint to the art-historical archetype of the female nude. His 2008 museum solo project "We'll Be Seeing You" appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. In 2014-2016 and in 2022-2023 he exhibited work in group shows sponsored by the US State Department's Art in Embassies Program, at the United States Embassies in Vienna, Austria, and Stockholm, Sweden. In 2017 his large solo show "Maine And Again" appeared at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, Maine, and in 2019 his solo "Against the Grain: Men, Maps and Other Incorrections" was featured at the Gallery of Art at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He has had a multi year museum project based on other artists, including Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Francisco Toledo, Alex Katz, Edward Hopper, Chris Burden and more.
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York.
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Logan Collection, San Francisco, California.
- Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado.
- Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona.
- Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- 21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
- National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming.
- Usminas Cultural Institute (Usicultura), Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
- Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art, New York City, New York.
- Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.
- University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine.
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.
- Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine.
- University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
- McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, New York.
- U.S. West Communications, Denver, Colorado.
- Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, Colorado.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 - "SUCH A CHARACTER: FACES IN THE ZILLMAN COLLECTION," Zillman Art Museum, University of Maine, Bangor, Maine. (artists include Jack Balas, Robert Colescott, Ariel Dill (American, born 1976) Peignoir, 2014. Acrylic and oil on canvas. Gift of the Alex Katz Foundation, Herbert Fink, Red Grooms (American, born 1937) Pablo Picasso Goes to Heaven, 1973-1976. Etching and watercolor. Martin Lewis, Reginald Marsh, Jim Dine, Val Lewton, Matt Phillips, Alison Weld.
2023 - "SURPRISE! THE NEW CURATOR'S SURPRISE FINDS IN THE COLLECTION," Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2022 - "FRAGILE FIGURES: BEINGS AND TIME," 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky. (December 2022-- December 2023)
2022 - "AND SO DID PLEASURE TAKE THE HAND OF SORROW, AND THEY WANDERED THROUGH THE LAND OF JOY:" (A LEGACY OF MARSDEN HARTLEY) Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine, October 28, 2022--March 18,2023
2022 - United States Embassy, Vienna, Austria, U.S. Department of State Art In Embassies Program (2022-2024)
2022 - United States Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden, U.S. Department of State Art In Embassies Program (2022-2024)
2021 - "Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection," Tucson Museum of Art,
2019 - "The Western Sublime: Majestic Landscape Paintings of the American West," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona.
2018 - "ARIZONA BIENNIAL 2018," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona.
2017 - "PIRATES OUTSIDER SHOW," Pirate Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado.
2017 - "SUPERSTAR," Elizabeth Houston Gallery, New York City (May 24 - July 14, 2017)
2017 - "UNCHARTED WATERS: THE FINE ART OF WATERCOLOR PAINTING," Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
2017 - "BODY LANGUAGE," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2017 - "COWBOY," Feast Gallery. Fayetteville, Arkansas.
2016 - Group Exhibition, Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM.
2016 - "AUDACIOUS: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS SPEAK OUT," Denver Art Museum,
2016 - "THE LAST PICTURE SHOW," James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM.
2015 - "GENDER," University Art Gallery, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant,
2014 - "OF A FEATHER," Downtown Gallery, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN.
2014 - "TRUE COLORS," Press Street Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2014 - "SMALL THINGS CONSIDERED," Davis Dominguez Gallery, Tucson, AZ.
2013 - "PAGE 179, ARTFORUM SEPTEMBER, 2013," Brennan and Griffin, New York, NY.
2013 - "A SHOW OF HANDS," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
2013 - "REVISITING: TEN YEARS OF THE VISITING ARTIST SERIES," Carson Gallery of the Art Students League of Denver, Denver, CO.
2013 - "TEN YEARS DRAWN," L2 Contemporary, Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA.
2013 - "CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THE WESTERN LANDSCAPE," Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, Albuquerque, NM. click here for image from the show
2013 - "THE ART OF RENEWAL," James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
2012 - "Summer Gallery Artists," James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2012 - "CON TEXT" Permanent Collections Gallery, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
2011 - "SCOPE MIAMI," (artfair) (presented by Mulherin / CTS, Brooklyn), Miami Florida.
2011 - "ARIZONA BIENNIAL," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ. Curated by Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
2011 - "PULSE NEW YORK," (artfair) (presented by Creative Thrift Shop, Brooklyn NY)
2010 - "QUESTION IDENTITY -- FENCES: WRONG ANSWER; LGBTQ PERSPECTIVES," Crossman Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater WI.
2010 - "MADE IN TUCSON / BORN IN TUCSON / LIVE IN TUCSON" Part 2. Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ
2010 - "SONGS IN REVERSE," Crane Arts, Philadelphia PA, Curated by Ron Abram for Southern Graphics Council
2010 - "LOVELINES," RedLine Arts Center, Denver, CO.
2009 - "WORD," Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Danielle Steel, curator.
2009 - "THE MASTERS REMASTERED," Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, CO.
2009 - "THE GRAND CANYON: FROM DREAM TO ICON," Art Museum of South Texas,
2008 - "PREVIEW BERLIN" (artfair) Berlin Tempelhof Airport Hangar 2, Berlin, Germany.
2008 - "COCKED! The Possessed Male: Object of My Desire,"Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects, San Diego, CA
2008 - "SCOPE NEW YORK," (artfair) The Scope Pavilion, Lincoln Center, New York, NY
2007 - "CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL," (artfair) Istanbul Convention Center, Istanbul, Turkey;
2007 - "ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION," JENKINS JOHNSON GALLERY, San Francisco, California.
2007 - "THE BEAUTY IN MAN: 250 YEARS OF THE MALE FIGURE IN ART," Tregoning and Company, Cleveland, Ohio.
2007 - "REALationships: WORKS OF SURREAL INSPIRATION," Foothills Art Center, Golden, Colorado. (Curated by Michael Chavez)
2005 - "SELF-EXPOSURE: THE MALE NUDE SELF-PORTRAIT" Clamp Art, New York , New York.
1994 - "FOCUS ON COLORADO / THE FRONT RANGE: JACK BALAS, WES HEMPEL & SCOTT CHAMBERLIN," Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado.