# Susan Jane Walp

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{{short description|American painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix = 
| name             = Susan Jane Walp
| honorific_suffix = 
| image            = 
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| native_name      = 
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| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{Birth date and age|1948|09|07}}
| birth_place      = [Allentown, Pennsylvania](/source/Allentown%2C_Pennsylvania), U.S.
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| nationality      = 
| education        = [Mount Holyoke College](/source/Mount_Holyoke_College)<br>[New York Studio School](/source/New_York_Studio_School) 
| alma_mater       = 
| known_for        = Still life painting
| notable_works    = 
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| spouse           = Michael Moore (1941-2014)
| awards           = Guggenheim Fellowship<br>American Academy of Arts and Letters<br>National Endowment for the Arts<br>National Academy of Design
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| website          = [https://www.susanjanewalp.com/ Susan Jane Walp]
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}} 

'''Susan Jane Walp''' (born September 7, 1948) is an American artist known for small, contemplative [still life](/source/still_life) paintings.<ref name="Sutphin19">Sutphin, Eric. [https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/susan-jane-walp-62671/ "Susan Jane Walp,"] ''Art in America'', May 1, 2019. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Samet15">Samet, Jennifer. [https://hyperallergic.com/beer-with-a-painter-susan-jane-walp/ "Beer with a Painter: Susan Jane Walp,"] ''Hyperallergic'', October 10, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Marquardt95">Marquardt-Cherry, Janet. ''Objects of Personal Significance'', Kansas City, MO: Exhibits USA, Mid-American Arts Alliance, 1996.</ref><ref name="Smith15">Smith, Roberta. [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/arts/design/museum-gallery-listings-for-oct-9-15.html "Susan Jane Walp: Paintings on Paper,"] ''The New York Times'', October 15, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> Critics describe her work as meditations on time, memory and mortality,<ref name="Barrette17">Barrette, Bill. "Motifs, Masters, and Metaphysics: Susan Jane Walp's Still Life(s)," ''Susan Jane Walp: Still Life'', Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, 2017.</ref> celebrations of the complexities of seeing,<ref name="Whalley24">Whalley, Elizabeth. [https://twocoatsofpaint.com/2024/07/ying-li-and-susan-jane-walp-innovative-traditionalists.html "Ying Li and Susan Jane Walp: Innovative traditionalists,"] ''Two Coats of Paint'', July 16, 2024. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> and homages to the dignity of natural and humble objects.<ref name="Sheck00">Sheck, Laurie. ''The Paintings of Susan Jane Walp'', San Francisco, CA: Hackett Freedman Gallery, 2000.</ref><ref name="Smith17">Smith, Nicola. [https://www.vnews.com/Susan-Walp-exhibits-paintings-at-Dartmouth-9320635 "Still Lifes Hold Deep Reservoir of Emotion,"] ''Valley News'', April 20, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Johnson03">Johnson, Ken. [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/arts/art-in-review-susan-jane-walp.html?searchResultPosition=7 "Susan Jane Walp,"] ''The New York Times'', January 24, 2003. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> [Stephen Westfall](/source/Stephen_Westfall) commented, "the care and precision of her painting decisions are felt as a kind of spiritual penetration into the everyday and into the realm of awareness in art wherein the living speak with the dead or the otherwise absent."<ref name="Westfall07">Westfall, Stephen. ''Susan Jane Walp: Come Close'', New York, NY: Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 2007.</ref>
thumb|right|upright=1.1|Susan Jane Walp, ''Melon Sliced Open on a Black Plate with Knife'', oil on linen, 10.375" x 10.125", 2015.

==Early life and education==
Walp was born in [Allentown, Pennsylvania](/source/Allentown%2C_Pennsylvania), on September 7, 1948.<ref name="Samet15"/><ref name="Butler15">Butler, Sharon. [https://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2015/09/preview-susan-jane-walp-at-tibor-de-nagy.html "Preview: Susan Jane Walp at Tibor de Nagy,"] ''Two Coats of Paint'', September 4, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> She studied art at [Mount Holyoke College](/source/Mount_Holyoke_College) (BA, 1970) and a [Boston University](/source/Boston_University) summer program, where she first worked with painter [Lennart Anderson](/source/Lennart_Anderson), a longtime mentor and friend, who taught her a painting approach grounded in tonal relationships.<ref name="Samet15"/><ref name="Barrette17"/> She undertook further studies at the [New York Studio School](/source/New_York_Studio_School_of_Drawing%2C_Painting_and_Sculpture), with Nicholas Carone, the [Skowhegan School](/source/Skowhegan_School_of_Painting_and_Sculpture), and the [Brooklyn College](/source/Brooklyn_College) MFA program.<ref name="Barrette17"/><ref name="Samet15"/>

==Career==
Walp has exhibited in solo shows at galleries including [Fischbach](/source/Fischbach_Gallery) and [Tibor de Nagy](/source/Tibor_de_Nagy_Gallery) in New York City, Pamela Salisbury in Hudson, New York,<ref name="Goodrich15">Goodrich, John. [https://www.artcritical.com/2015/10/05/john-goodrich-on-susan-jane-walp/ "Momentousness: The Still Life Paintings of Susan Jane Walp,"] ''Artcritical'', October 5, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Sutphin19"/><ref name="Whalley24"/>  Hackett Freedman in San Francisco,<ref name="Sheck00"/> and Victoria Munroe in New York City and Boston.<ref name="Corbett03">Corbett, William. "Susan Walp Drawings: Victoria Munroe Gallery," ''ArtsMEDIA'', November 2003.</ref><ref name="McQuaid07">McQuaid, Cate. "Contemplative still lifes," ''The Boston Globe'', January 4, 2007.</ref> Her work has also appeared at the American Academy, [Denver Art Museum](/source/Denver_Art_Museum), Jaffe-Friede Gallery of [Dartmouth College](/source/Dartmouth_College), [Naples Museum of Art](/source/Naples_Museum_of_Art) and National Academy Museum, among other venues.<ref name="Barrette17"/><ref name="Sheck00"/> She is based in Vermont.<ref name="Samet15"/>
===Work and reception===
Critics link Walp's work to historical traditions such as American [pragmatism](/source/pragmatism) and its emphasis on discipline, attention and craft, Roman [frescoes](/source/Fresco) and Northern European renaissance still lifes.<ref name="Sutphin19"/><ref name="Westfall07"/><ref name="Whalley24"/> Modern touchstones include the compositional order of [Cézanne](/source/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne) and the early [Cubism](/source/Cubism) of [Braque](/source/Georges_Braque) and [Juan Gris](/source/Juan_Gris), [Giorgio Morandi](/source/Giorgio_Morandi), and 20th-century American painters such as [Charles Webster Hawthorne](/source/Charles_Webster_Hawthorne) and [Edwin Dickinson](/source/Edwin_Dickinson), who combined penetrating observation with an atmospheric, sometimes abstract, sense of space.<ref name="Johnson03"/><ref name="Smith17"/><ref name="Sutphin19"/> ''New York Times'' critic [Ken Johnson](/source/Ken_Johnson_(art_critic)) wrote, "Walp is a [modernist](/source/Modernism) … She knows how to make paint do double duty in the service of both a cannily abbreviated illusionism and a delicate [abstraction](/source/Abstract_art) of paper-thin planes … how to let painterly gesture embody a sensual urgency that the imagery demurely guards."<ref name="Johnson03"/>

Walp typically works at a limited size in muted colors and in a square format more associated with abstraction.<ref name="Barrette17"/><ref name="Smith17"/><ref name="Yau22">Yau, John. [https://hyperallergic.com/the-hidden-poetry-of-everyday-life/ "Still Life and the Poetry of Place: The Hidden Poetry of Everyday Life,"] ''Hyperallergic'', September 28, 2022. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> Her iconography is enigmatic, consisting of arrangements of objects without functional relationships to one another.<ref name="Barrette17"/><ref name="Smith17"/><ref name="Scott20">Scott, Andrea. [https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/art/spotlight-nothing-but-flowers "(Nothing but) Flowers,"] ''The New Yorker'', August 7, 2020. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> Her compositions frequently employ a complex geometry of secondary shapes and objects revolving around a central, often circular, element.<ref name="Westfall07"/><ref name="Barrette17"/><ref name="Paglia98">Paglia, Michael. [https://www.westword.com/arts-culture/object-lessons-5059049/ "Object Lessons,"] ''Westword'', September 10, 1998. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref> She sometimes compresses space in way that equalizes meticulously detailed objects and minimal, rougher backgrounds, creating a tension between intimate naturalism and artifice (e.g., ''Melon Sliced Open on a Black Plate with Knife'', 2015).<ref name="Whalley24"/><ref name="Sutphin19"/><ref name="Sheck00"/> ''Art in America'' critic Eric Sutphin remarked, "The modesty of Walp’s work is deceptive: her paintings demand the viewer’s complete attention in order to reveal their nuances … [they] reward those who take the time to look at them closely and deeply, their quiet stillness offering a moment of contemplative sanctuary."<ref name="Sutphin19"/> 

===Recognition===
Walp was awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (2006), Bogliasco Center (2007), New York Creative Arts Public Service Program (1978) and National Endowment for the Arts (1977).<ref name="GUG">John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. [https://www.gf.org/fellows/susan-jane-walp Susan Jane Walp], Fellows. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Bogliasco">Bogliasco Center. [https://www.bfny.org/en/fellows/directory-of-fellows Directory of Fellows]. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="NAM2">National Academy Museum. [https://nationalacademy.emuseum.com/people/3415/susan-jane-walp Susan Jane Walp], People. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="Butler15"/> She received awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2009, 2021) and National Academy of Design (2006, 2009).<ref name="NAM2"/> In 2017, she was the artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College.<ref name="DC">Dartmouth College. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQvK35XNZUU 2017 Artist-in-Residence Lecture], 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref>

Walp's art is held in the public collections of the [Hood Museum of Art](/source/Hood_Museum_of_Art), National Academy Museum and [Sheldon Museum of Art](/source/Sheldon_Museum_of_Art), among others.<ref name="HMA">Hood Museum of Art. [https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/search-collections?keywords=%22Susan%20Jane%20Walp%22&on_view_only=0&photos_only=0&downloads_only=0&orderby=early_date Susan Jane Walp], Collections. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="NAM">National Academy Museum. [https://nationalacademy.emuseum.com/objects/8795/blueberries-in-a-green-candy-dish-with-tea-strainer?ctx=bb0f5f01edf2d28a17ca4050ba8e99713f35862e&idx=0 ''Blueberries in a Green Candy Dish with Tea Strainer'', Susan Jane Walp], Collections. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref><ref name="SMA">Sheldon Museum of Art. [https://emp-web-95.zetcom.ch/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultListView/result.t2.artist_list.$TspTitleLink$0.link&sp=10&sp=Sartist&sp=SfilterDefinition&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=SsimpleList&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=19 Susan Jane Walp], Collections. Retrieved February 13, 2026.</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.susanjanewalp.com/ Official website]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5rljr6Pmg8 Susan Jane Walp & Eleanor Ray in Conversation], New York Studio School, 2021
*[https://savvypainter.com/podcast/susan-walp/ Susan Jane Walp interview], ''Savvy Painter'', 2016
*[https://hyperallergic.com/beer-with-a-painter-susan-jane-walp/ Susan Jane Walp interview], ''Hyperallergic'', 2015
*[https://www.tibordenagy.com/artists/susan-jane-walp Susan Jane Walp], Tibor de Nagy

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walp, Susan Jane}}
Category:1948 births
Category:Living people
Category:21st-century American women painters
Category:American realist painters
Category:American still life painters
Category:Mount Holyoke College alumni
Category:Painters from Pennsylvania
Category:Painters from Vermont
Category:Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Susan Jane Walp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Jane_Walp) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Jane_Walp?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.