Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
To apply to the Registry, click here. Join our mailing list here to receive our open call announcement and other programming updates. For any further questions about the Registry, please contact us at registry@whitecolumns.org.
RESUME
CLAIRE WATSON is a visual artist based in New York. Born in Amarillo, TX, she earned a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA at Tyler School of Art in Rome and Philadelphia. She moved to New York in 1984, supporting her studio practice as a teacher, scenic and decorative painter, and model-maker for a commercial props studio.
Claire has been a residency fellow at The Watermill Center and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and was selected for a studio residency at Mass MoCA. Other awards include a Fellowship in Sculpture from New York Foundation for the Arts and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She has exhibited widely, most recently at Hesse Flatow East, in Amagansett, NY and Essex Flowers, NYC. Her works are in numerous private and permanent collections, including The Heckscher Museum of Art, The Watermill Center, and Onna House.
EDUCATION
1984 MFA in Sculpture, Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy & Philadelphia, PA
1980 BFA, University of Texas, Austin, TX
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2020 Artist-in-Residence, The Watermill Center, Water Mill, NY
2019 Saltonstall Foundation Residency Fellowship, Ithaca, NY
2018 The Studios at MASS MoCA Artist Residency, North Adams, MA
2011 Special Opportunity Stipend (SOS), New York Foundation for the Arts & EEAC, Riverhead, NY
2007 NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY
1990-91 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY
1989 Artist-in-Residence, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT (Fall Term)
SELECTED SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2025 Solo exhibition, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY (scheduled)
2023 ASHLYN x Claire Watson: ASHLYN Spring Summer Runway Show, Onna House Loft, NYC
2021 Guardian: Ester Partegàs & Claire Watson, Essex Flowers, NYC; curated by Antonia Kuo & Tamar Ettun
2021 Re-Figuring, The Arts Center at Duck Creek, East Hampton, NY
2018 The Thing Is, Ille Arts, Amagansett, NY
2014 Now What, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio, TX
2012 Art Sites, Riverhead, NY
2011 Anthony Giordano Gallery, Dowling College, Oakdale, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Red Dot, The Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio, TX
Trodden Path, Hesse Flatow East, Amagansett, NY
Perennials: 10 Years of Essex Flowers, Essex Flowers Gallery, NYC
Raise the Roof: The Home in Art, Heckscher Art Museum, Huntington, NY
2022 A Loom of One’s Own, Onna House, East Hampton, NY; curated by Lisa Perry
Curious Terrain, Exhibition The Barn at Frampton Co, Bridgehampton, NY; curated by Casey Dalene
VSOP Projects, Greenport, NY; curated by Jonathan Weiskopf
2021 Far & Wide, Woodstock Artists Association & Museum; curated by Nicelle Beauchene & Franklin Parrasch
2020 Long Island Biennial, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
The Daily, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; curated by Sharon Butler
2019 Reused & Recycled, Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; curated by Jean Shin
2018 Sea, Sky and Sculpture, The Mabel & Victor D’Amico Studio & Archive, Amagansett, NY; curated by Anne Seelbach
2017 The Unreliable Narrator, Art Helix Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; curated by Peter Hopkins
2016 SHIM Invitational 3, Art Helix Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2014 NYFA Fellows Hiroyuki Hamada, Andreas Rentsch & Claire Watson, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY;
2012 The Fool’s Journey, Curious Matter, Jersey City, NJ & Proteus Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
2010 Objectified, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY; curated by David C. Terry & Matthew Deleget
2009 Hysteria: Past Yet Present, Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers, SUNJ, Newark, NJ; curated by Anonda Bell
2008 New Life Visuals, New Life Shop, Choriner Strasse, Berlin, Germany
2007 Free Play, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; curated by Judith Page
2005 The Sixth Borough, Anthony Giordano Gallery, Dowling College, Oakdale, NY
1993 Obsessive Collection, Art in General, New York, NY; curated by Holly Block
Six: Sculptural Visions, The Baxter Gallery, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME; curated by Susan Waller
Selections, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY; curated by Susan Hoeltzel
1992 Women and Surrealism, A.R.C. Gallery, Chicago, IL
1991 Introductions '91, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
The Watermill Center, Water Mill NY
The Mabel & Victor D’Amico Studio & Archive, Amagansett, NY
Osterreichisches Tabakmuseum, Vienna, Austria