Will Barnet: Eight decades of seeing the world anew

Will Barnet is still painting at 99 years of age, said Robin Finn in The New York Times. For eight decades, Barnet has taken up his brush every day, painting whatever comes to mind, in a range of styles. In 1931 he left Boston for New York City with $10 in his pocket to study art. With the Depression shaping everything he saw, Barnet wandered the streets like his idol, the French painter Honoré Daumier, painting the lean, angry faces. “I felt like Gary Cooper, like a cowboy in a Western movie,” Barnet says. He caught a few breaks, such as painting a portrait of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in exchange for rent money. By the 1950s, Barnet’s distinct abstract style gained him a formidable reputation (some of those pieces sell for up to $400,000), but his work eventually became more figurative. “I never wanted to repeat myself,” he says. “I love finding fresh ways to use color and form.”

Retiring has never occurred to him. “I have no opinion on what it means to be 99 except that it’s different from being 19. I used to work eight, nine, 10 hours a day.” He now paints three or four hours a day despite being unable to stand. “I didn’t compromise, ever,” he adds. “The old masters are still alive after 400 years, and that’s what I want to be. I’ve seen it all, but I want to see more.”

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