Donald Doe is an American artist born in Ohio, who goes by the name Don Doe. He went to the Cleveland Institute of Art and received his MFA in Sculpture from Yale University School of Art. Pieces of his work are owned by the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Cornell University, among others.
Doe’s work evolved into the focus of the female body. The male and female figures play into the viewer’s understanding of social reality, as well as the classical masters who also painted nude figures. This review in The New York Times by Ken Johnson briefly goes over the way Doe’s work interacts with mythology and male desire. “With loaded brushes on medium-size canvases, Mr. Doe paints heated close-ups of beautiful nude or partly exposed women. Lurking in the background of each is a man–or, in one case, a woman–with a camera. Each picture updates an ancient myth: the Expulsion, Leda and the Swan, Echo, and Narcissus. But what is most immediately at stake is the connection between a psychology of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and shame on the one hand, and the urgent sensuality of painting on the other. For all its material generosity, however, a certain stiff and laborious quality in his painting undermines the effect.”
Education
1987 MFA, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT
1986-90 Tallix Art Foundry, internship, Beacon NY
1980 Yale at Norfolk School for Music and Art, Norfolk CT
Solo Exhibitions (selected)
2023 I’ll Have What They’re Having, 490 Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2022 They Are Sebastian, Catherine Fosnot Gallery, New London CT
2018 To You, The View, To Me; Hudson Beach Glassworks Gallery, Beacon NY
2017 Val and Veronica, 490 Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2016 Turn Left at the Blue Fairy Dove Tail Joint, Fred Valentine Gallery, Ridgewood Queens NY
2012 Tossed Overboard, Morgan Lehman Gallery, NY NY
2008 New Mothers, Mireille Mosler Ltd., NY NY
2007 Shaped by the Sea, Mireille Mosler Ltd, New York
2006 Dangerous Waters: Heroines & Hellions, curated by Andrea Inselmann, Cornell University
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
New Work, Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago Il
Scopophilia, Toledo Museum of Art, CVA Gallery, Toledo OH
2005 The Sea Is Deep, Oliver Kamm Gallery, NY NY
2004 New Paintings, Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery, Chicago
2003 Recent Paintings, Oliver Kamm Gallery, NY NY
2001 Scopophilia, Bellwether Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Group Exhibitions (selected)
2024 Vision of the Invisible’ – Exhibition of Drawings, Rosebud Contemporary, New York
2023 (So) Happy Together, Artego Studio Gallery, Astoria Queens, NY
2022 Follow George Grosz, Kunstsammlung Stadtische Museen Jena, Germany
Artful Partners, Shiva Gallery, NY NY
Saints & Sinners, Red Fox Contemporary, Pound Ridge, NY
2021 a/Muse, Red Fox Contemporary, Pound Ridge, NY
Land X, curated by D Lombardi, Red Fox Contemporary, Pound Ridge, NY
2020 Beth deWoody Collection, Fatale Femme room, The Bunker Art Space, West Palm Beach, FL
NO BODY, Galerie Manque, Bushwick, Brooklyn NY
A Horse Walks Into a Bar: Humor in Contemporary Art, Hampden Gallery @ UMASS, Amherst
2019 Menagerie Unfolded, SRO Gallery, Brooklyn NY
Before The Moon Draws Back, Talking Pictures Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2018 Summer of Love, Arts+Leasure Gallery, NY NY
“Water Over The Bridge”, Morean Arts Ctr, St Petersburg, FL
Where To Draw the Line, OneWay Gallery, Narragansett, RI
Photo-A-GoGo, SRO Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2017 Duchamp’s Plumbing, 2017 Walter Wichiser Gallery NY NY
Self Indulgence, UMASS Amherst, (September),
American Pie, 490 Gallery, Brooklyn NY
“Selfie”, Schelfhaudt Gallery, University of Bridgeport CT
Sportsvergnügen, Lichtundfire Gallery, NY NY
Mykonos Biennale, Mykonos Greece
2016 Cabinet of Curiosities, SRO gallery, Brooklyn NY
Drawing show, Tiger Strikes Asteriod Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2015 Making History, Storefront Ten Eyck Gallery, NYNY
Attachment Theory, 184 Project Space NY NY, @Select Miami Basel
2014 Dystopian Visions, Guild Greene Gallery, Brooklyn
The Meaning of Life, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2013 Pinups & Portraits, IKON contemporary Ltd., Santa Monica CA
Unhinged, Pierogi Gallery, NY NY
The Armory Show, Mireille Mosler, Ltd
2011 Kompass-Zeichnungen aus dem MOMA New York, The Judith Rothschild Foundation
Contemporary Drawing Collection, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
2010 Permanent Trouble (Herbert Kopp Collection), Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie,
Regensburg,Germany(catalog)
Bodies Unbound:The Classical and Grotesque. Johnson Museum, Cornell Univ., Ithica, NY
The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawing Collection, MOMA, NY(catalog)
Drawing Room (the Bakery), Annet Gelink Gallerie, Amsterdam
2009 RE: figure, a Contemporary Look at Representation in Art, Glass Curtain Gallery, Chicago Il
Tease, Mireille Mosler, Ltd., NY NY
2006 Memento Mori, Mireille Mosler Ltd, New York
The Armory Show, Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery
2005 Superfat, Brooklyn Fire Proof, Brooklyn
Radical Vaudeville, Geoff Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
The Armory Show, Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery, NY NY
2004 Is One Thing Better Than Another?, Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Cologne,
So Sweet, curated by Christian Chapelle, The Leisure Club Mogadihnsni, Copenhagen
Conceptual Realism, Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
]Awards, Grants and Fellowships (selected)
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant ; Ludwig Vogelstien Foundation Grant; National Graduate Fellow
PUBLICATIONS/ REVIEWS (selected)
2022 Catherine Fosnot, I’ll Have What They’re Having, Exhibition catalog with interview, & essay by
Dominique Nahas
Follow George Grosz, catalog with essay, Kunstsammlung Stadtische Museen Jena, Germany
2020 Roman Kalinovski, The Revival of ‘No Body’, Arcade Project www.arcadeprojectzine.com
2018 Dominique Nahas, To You, the View To Me, exhibition catalog essay, NY, 05/2018
Joseph Ralph Fraia, Photo-a-GoGo: works of light exposed, LiveIn-Style Magazine,10/28
2017 D.Dominick Lombardi, Duchamp’s Plumbing, Huffington Post, 4/28/2017
2016 Art Critical.com, D. Cohen, Pick of the week, Nov 1 2016
James Kalm, Don Doe at Valentine, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fquT83CQwA
2015 Heather Joy Morgan, web interview, @CheapandPlastique.com
2014 Pierogi Gallery, flatfile web interview with Jen Hitchings @pierogigallery.com
2010 Andrea Madesta, Permanent Trouble; Sammlung Kopp collection, catalog essay, Snoeck,
Koln Germany, 2010.
Birgit Sonna, The Collector, The Punk and His Dwarf, www.art-magazin.de, March 23 2010,
2007 David Cohen, Naughty but Nice,, The New York Sun, April 26, 2007.
David Cohen, the Joy of Coyness, the New York Sun, July 12 2007.
Andrea Inselmann, Dangerous Waters, catalog essay, Herbert Johnson Museum, Ithaca NY.
2007 Zoltak, Benjamin, “Can of Culture,” Red Streak, Chicago, February 12.
Workman, Michael, “Girl Trouble,” New City, January 29.
Rosenfeld, Kathryn, “Painterly Pin-ups, Ironic Idiom,” Chicago Journal, Thursday, January 29.
2003 Johnson, Ken, “Art in Review,” The New York Times, March 14.2003
Harald Fricke, At the Center of the Periphery, Deutsche Bank; DB Artmag:
2001 Robinson, Walter,”Miami Sun”, Artnet Magazine, Artnet.com, Dec.19 2002
1999 American Illustration Annual, Vol. No. 19 & 18
1998 Kostabi, Mark, “Don Doe”. Shout Magazine, September.
Levin, Kim, “Don Doe,” The Village Voice, October 13.
1995 Roberta Smith, Blue in all its Glory, The New York Times, Nov.,8 1995
Collections (selected)
MOMA permanent drawing collection; Art Institute of Chicago, Permanent Drawing collection
Herbert F Johnson Museum, Cornell University; Herbert Kopp Collection, Munich Germany;
Middlebury College Art Museum, VT; Ray Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum Collection; Seltz Collection
Beth DeWoody Collection ; Kara Walker; Marc Jancou, NY NY; Jean Pigozzi collection