Mary Ellen Bartley

Reading in Color #25, from the series Reading in Color, 2020

Mary Ellen Bartley Biography: Mary Ellen Bartley is a photographer known for her quiet exploration of the printed book’s potential for abstraction. Series like Reading in Color, Paperbacks, and Reading November celebrate the tenacity of an object that, rather than falling into obsolescence as expected, has somehow become more universally beloved in the public imagination since the digital age first threatened its extinction. In addition to her sculptural treatment of anonymous volumes, many of them nostalgically recalling the pulp paperbacks of our childhoods, Mary Ellen Bartley has also turned her camera on notable libraries or collections. In 2015, Bartley was an Artist in Residence at the Watermill Center, an artist lab created by experimental theater director and artist Robert Wilson; Bartley created a series of photographs and an installation drawing from Wilson’s heavily notated stacks. Mary Ellen Bartley later sought out a series at Grey Gardens, the East Hampton mansion made famous by Jacqueline Kennedy cousins “Big” and “Little” Edie Bouvier Beale and the 1975 Maysles brothers documentary of the same title. The Grey Gardens film explores the decline of a great American estate and the eccentric reclusivity of the Edies; Reading Grey Gardens lovingly documents the Beales’ personal library, inviting the viewer to weave together their own narratives about the books’ storied owners. Most recently, Mary Ellen Bartley was in the midst of a residency at Giorgio Morandi’s studio and library in Bologna, Italy, when the 2020 pandemic hit. Morandi’s understated geometry and muted palette have long influenced Bartley . The residency’s interruption caused the photographer to complete the work from her own Sag Harbor studio, transforming photographs of Morandi’s books with collage elements informed by the now-distant tomes’ physical properties — sheets of vellum or glassine, still life compositions in conversation with Morandi’s own works. Mary Ellen Bartley: Morandi’s Books opens at the Museo Morandi in Bologna, Italy, in January of 2024. Mary Ellen Bartley was born in New York, NY, and received her BFA from Purchase College, SUNY. She lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY. Her work has been exhibited in numerous institutions, including The Queens Museum, NY; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Houston Center for Photography, TX; The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; The Watermill Center, NY; and National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala City. Bartley has taken part in numerous residencies, including Casa Morandi, Bologna, Italy; The Queens Museum, NY; Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY; Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY; and Watermill Center, NY. Bartley's work is in numerous collections, including Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY; McEvoy Family Collection, McEvoy Foundation, San Francisco, CA; MoMA Library Special Collections, New York, NY; Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; The Watermill Collection, Watermill, NY.