Amy Bennett
Value#95
Egon Investment Scores
Liquidity
3/10
How easily works can be bought and sold at auction
Institutional
8/10
Museum collections, biennials, and institutional recognition
Momentum
5/10
Recent price trends, gallery moves, and market buzz
Discovery
3/10
Undervaluation opportunity relative to peer artists
Risk
3/10
Investment risk factors — higher means more volatile
Market Position
Recent Sales Highlights
| Work | Price | Venue & Date |
|---|---|---|
| Cabin Fever | $22,557 | Bukowskis, 2015-11-11 |
| Up to our necks | — | 2012-05-23 |
| On All Fours | — | 2017-10-25 |
| We have our doubts | — | |
| Adrift | — |
- Pricing
- Liquidity
- Limited secondary market activity; primarily gallery-controlled sales through established representation
- Collector Base
- Contemporary art collectors focused on figurative painting and narrative work; institutional buyers including major museums
- Auction History
- Artwork
- Cabin Fever
- Currency
- USD
- Location
- Stockholm
- Sale Date
- November 11, 2015
- Year Created
- 2007
- Auction House
- Bukowskis
- Highest Price
- $22,557
- Notable Sales
Title Year Sale Date Status Cabin Fever 2007 2015-11-11 — Up to our necks 2007 2012-05-23 Sold On All Fours 2009 2017-10-25 Sold We have our doubts 2011 2023-04-21 Sold Adrift 2005 2023-09-29 Sold - Total Lots Tracked
- 5
- Market Position
- Market Positioning
- Established mid-career painter with strong gallery representation and institutional validation; work compared to photographers James Casebere, Thomas Demand, and Laurie Simmons for model-based approach
Institutional Presence
- Exhibitions
- Solo Exhibitions
Title Year Venue Location Shelter 2024 Miles McEnery Gallery New York, NY Nuclear Family 2019 Miles McEnery Gallery New York, NY Nuclear Family 2019 Brattleboro Museum & Art Center Brattleboro, VT Small Changes Every Day 2016 Richard Heller Gallery Santa Monica, CA — 2013 Richard Heller Gallery Santa Monica, CA Sore Spots 2011 Galleri Magnus Karlsson Stockholm, Sweden At the Lake 2009 Richard Heller Gallery Santa Monica, CA — 2009 Tomio Koyama Gallery Tokyo, Japan — 2007 Richard Heller Gallery Santa Monica, CA — 2005 Linda Warren Gallery Chicago, IL - Art Fair Participation
- Frieze New York (2017, with Galleri Magnus Karlsson)Art Basel (with Tomio Koyama Gallery)The Armory Show (with Richard Heller Gallery and Galleri Magnus Karlsson)Chart Art Fair Copenhagen (2015, 2024)Pulse (with Richard Heller Gallery)Frieze London (with Galleri Magnus Karlsson)Art Fair Tokyo (with Tomio Koyama Gallery)
- Major Group Exhibitions
Title Year Dates Venue Location Nightshade: The World in the Evening 2025 January 16 - March 30, 2025 Oakland University Art Gallery Rochester, MI Miniature, Monumental 2025-2026 October 31, 2025 - January 14, 2026 UNC Charlotte Projective Eye Gallery Charlotte, NC Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection 2023 July 22, 2023 - July 28, 2025 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Boston, MA Transformations: New Perspectives on the Art of Miniatures 2023-2024 October 27, 2023 - May 20, 2024 The National Museum of Toys / Miniatures Kansas City, MO Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts 2020 March 5 - April 5, 2020 American Academy of Arts and Letters New York, NY Downsized: Small-Scale Sculpture by Contemporary Artists 2018-2019 November 3, 2018 - January 27, 2019 The Bruce Museum Greenwich, CT Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities 2011 — Museum of Arts & Design New York, NY XS 2011-2012 December 6, 2011 - April 15, 2012 Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, NY
- Publications
- Monographs and Publications
Title Year Essay by Publisher Amy Bennett: Small Changes Every Day — Eleanor Heartney Black Dog Publishing Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism — Barry Schwabsky — A Brush with the Real: Figurative Painting Today 2014 — Lawrence King Publishing The Figure: Painting Drawing, and Sculpture 2014 — Skira Rizzoli
- Museum Collections
Works Count Institution Location Note Specific Works 14 Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, NY — Diagnosis, Hypochondriac 14 Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC Holdings confirmed via museum API data — — Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Boston, MA Acquired as promised gift of The American Academy of Arts and Letters; on view through 2025 Delivery (2019) - Awards and Recognition
Year Award 2011 — 2015 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (Fine Arts) 2020 American Academy of Arts & Letters Purchase Award 2010 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship — Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant — Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Painting — Miller Award for Artistic Excellence — Barbara Podorowsky Memorial Award for Excellence in Painting 2003 Prince of Wales Scholarship to Normandy
Career & Biography
- Career
- 2002
- Completed MFA from New York Academy of Art
- 2003
- Received Prince of Wales Scholarship to Normandy
- 2005
- First solo exhibition at Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago; began exhibiting internationally
- 2010
- Received New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship
- 2011
- Commissioned for permanent mosaic installation 'Heydays' at 86th Street & 4th Avenue Brooklyn Subway Station (MTA Arts for Transit)
- 2015
- Received John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
- 2020
- Selected for American Academy of Arts & Letters Invitational Exhibition; received Purchase Award
- 2021
- Work acquired by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- 2024
- 'Shelter' exhibition at Miles McEnery Gallery
- 2007-2011
- Multiple solo exhibitions at Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm and Richard Heller Gallery
- 2016-2019
- Continued solo exhibitions at major galleries; 'Nuclear Family' series exhibited
- Working Method
- Two-stage process: first builds scale models and dioramas (1:87 to 1:500 scale) from cardboard, wood, Styrofoam, plastic, and model railroad miniatures, then paints from observation of these constructed scenes
- Identity
- Family Status
- Married with two children
- Getty Ulan Id
- 500524195
- Current Location
- Cold Spring, New York, USA
- Artistic Context
- Creates narrative paintings from painstakingly constructed miniature 3D models to explore memory, suburban life, and human relationships with total control over lighting, composition, and vantage point
Artistic Profile
- Style
- Evolution
- Began with dolls and dollhouse furniture, evolved to discovering model railroad miniatures; progressively increased ambition of model-making from single scenes to elaborate 450-building landscapes; themes shifted from general suburban observations to more personal explorations of parenthood and marriage as life circumstances changed
- Influences
- Influences and Context
- Edward Hopper (voyeuristic domestic scenes, American isolation)James Casebere (photographer working with architectural models)Thomas Demand (photographer creating and photographing constructed environments)Laurie Simmons (photographer working with miniatures and dolls)Model railroad and miniature traditionsAmerican suburban mythology and landscape paintingHudson Valley artistic community
- Visual Language
- Typically small-scale paintings (ranging from 2.5 x 2 inches to 32 x 40 inches); figures usually rendered approximately one inch tall
- Themes and Subjects
- Suburban and rural American lifeMemory and narrativeNuclear family dynamics and domesticityParenthood and marriage anxietiesPrivacy vs. exposureIsolation within populated environmentsHuman relationships to changing environmentsVoyeurism and surveillanceThe mundane and overlooked moments of daily life
- Movements and Periods
- Major Series
Title Year Years Focus Nuclear Family — 2018-2019 Vulnerabilities and anxieties of parenthood and marriage; complex depiction of family life Small Changes Every Day 2016 — Created 8x8-foot Styrofoam landscape with 450+ buildings depicting town development over time; explores changing relationships to environment and American dream of taming nature Shelter 2024 — Exploration of modern fear, paranoia, and psychological shelter; ominous domestic scenes At the Lake / Lakefront Series — 2008-2009 Leisure and isolation in natural settings Sore Spots 2011 — Public spaces (churches, doctor's offices, theaters) where private experiences spill into public view - Critical Reception Themes
- Work praised for psychological complexity, technical mastery, unique process, ability to capture American suburban anxiety, and skillful balance between naturalism and artificiality; comparisons to both photographers and painters demonstrate cross-disciplinary appeal
- Techniques and Mediums
- Oil on panel, oil on canvas, monotypes, occasionally sculptural installations of models Creates detailed 3D miniature models at 1:87 to 1:500 scale (model railroad scale) using cardboard, wood, Styrofoam, plastic, model railroad miniatures, then paints from observation with controlled lighting
Critical Reception
- Critical Reception
- Major Reviews
Title Date Critic Publication Suburban Visions to Make Your Skin Crawl / In Praise of Painting's Ambiguity July 2019 John Yau Hyperallergic — September 4, 2019 Robert R. Shane The Brooklyn Rail 'Amy Bennett: Shelter' Review: Marvelous, Mysterious Scenes June 21, 2024 — The Wall Street Journal Are those model buildings or a painting? For artist Amy Bennett, the answer is both September 27, 2016 / January 22, 2009 Leah Ollman / Christopher Knight Los Angeles Times A Peephole Perspective on Tiny Worlds June 9, 2011 Carol Kino The New York Times Amy Bennett Builds a Miniature World September 2016 Juliet Helmke Modern Painters Eight that could shake the world September 2007 Simon DeBurton Financial Times — February 2, 2023 / May 24, 2024 — Juxtapoz Magazine - Critical Consensus
- Highly regarded for technical mastery, innovative process, and ability to capture psychological complexity of suburban American life; work noted for 'unsettling kind of realism – simultaneously artificial and naturalistic' (Eleanor Heartney)
- Academic Scholarship
- Featured in multiple scholarly publications on contemporary figurative painting and narrative art; work analyzed in context of model-based artistic practices
- Critical Positioning
- Recognized for unique hybrid approach combining sculpture, model-making, and painting; compared to photographers James Casebere, Thomas Demand, and Laurie Simmons, and painters including Edward Hopper for voyeuristic domestic scenes
- Publications and Media
Gallery & Representation
- Representation
- Past Representation
Location Note Gallery Tokyo, Japan Solo exhibition 2009; represented at Art Basel and Art Fair Tokyo Tomio Koyama Gallery Chicago, IL First solo exhibition 2005 Linda Warren Gallery New York, NY Solo exhibition 2016; predecessor to Miles McEnery Gallery Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery - Gallery Tier Analysis
- Strong Tier 2 representation with three active galleries across three continents; Miles McEnery Gallery (New York), Richard Heller Gallery (Los Angeles), and Galleri Magnus Karlsson (Stockholm) provide comprehensive coverage of US and European markets
- Geographic Reach
- Primary market works available through galleries; prices on request for most recent works; secondary market limited
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