Morton Bartlett (American, 1909 to 1992)
Morton Bartlett was a private man whose artistry became public after his death. The adopted only son of a Boston Brahmin couple, he left Harvard two years before graduating with the class of 1932. Various jobs followed, including gas station manager and printer’s broker, while he devoted himself to creating a fantasy family of perfectly sculpted children. Bartlett photographed these meticulously dressed and posed figures in staged scenarios that were at once quotidian and dramatic: a girl curled up comfortably reading or dancing at a ballet class; a boy at the beach. Discovered in their entirety after the distribution of his estate, Morton Bartlett’s staged photographs have since received international acclaim. Bartlett’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Collection de l’Art Brut Musee, Lausanne, and many other institutions.
Information Courtesy of Rago Arts, December 2018.