16 Facts About Brenda Zlamany

Brenda Zlamany is an American artist best known for portraiture that combines Old Master technique with a postmodern conceptual approach.

Brenda Zlamany gained attention beginning in the 1990s, when critics such as Artforum's Barry Schwabsky, Donald Kuspit and John Yau identified her among a small group of figurative painters reviving the neglected legacies of portraiture and classical technique by introducing confrontational subject matter, psychological insight and social critique.

Brenda Zlamany's work has been recognized with a Fulbright Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, and commissions from Yale University, World Bank and The New York Times Magazine, among others; it belongs to public collections such as the Neuberger Museum of Art and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Brenda Zlamany was born in 1959 in New York City and raised in Queens, New York.

In 1984, Brenda Zlamany took advantage of a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and moved to New York City, working as a master printer with artists such as Julian Schnabel, Vija Celmins and Sol LeWitt, and making etchings at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

In subsequent years, Brenda Zlamany has had solo exhibitions at the Stux and Jessica Fredericks galleries, the Fine Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, and appeared in group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, National Portrait Gallery, and several European museums.

Brenda Zlamany continues to live in Williamsburg with her daughter, Oona.

In 1992, Brenda Zlamany painted her first human portrait and exhibited it alongside animal still lifes, interested in how the out-of-fashion genre would be received.

In 1998, Brenda Zlamany painted portraits of her pregnant sister and two sets of self-portraits, one nude and one in profiled poses recalling works by della Francesca; her 2007 show "Facing Family" featured portraits of her parents and daughter.

In later chapters of the project, Brenda Zlamany began signaling the social and political implications of specific habitats.

Brenda Zlamany continued the project in 2018 with her "Climate in America" portraits of Key West and Sonoma wine country residents and diverse Alaskans during a residency in Denali National Park.

Brenda Zlamany has received portrait commissions from individuals, publications and institutions such as the World Bank and Yale University, among others.

Brenda Zlamany produced portraits of Osama bin Laden, Slobodan Milosevic and Mirjana Markovic, Marian Anderson, and Jeffrey Dahmer for special issues of The New York Times Magazine.

Brenda Zlamany won a national competition for her first Yale commission, Yale's First Women Ph.

In 2022, The Rockefeller University unveiled Brenda Zlamany's commissioned group portrait, Five Trailblazing Women Scientists at The Rockefeller University, which she created after on-campus research into the scientists and their clothing, instruments and furniture.

Brenda Zlamany's work belongs to the public art collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Deutsche Bank, Neuberger Museum of Art, Museum Kaneko, The Rockefeller University, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, World Bank and Yale University.