Joan Snyder, 1940-
By Dane Moffat
Dark Strokes Hope, 1971, oil paint, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, and spray paint on canvas. Tate Modern Gallery.
“I’d walk into a museum and see that work and walk straight out,” remarked Joan Snyder, referring to Abstract Expressionist paintings. Though, I cannot say the same of her work, which I encountered at Tate Modern’s ‘Painterly Gestures’ exhibition during my birthday trip – the unexpected genesis of this week’s article since we were born the same week. Snyder was born April 16, 1940, in Highland Park, New Jersey, and did not attend museums and galleries during childhood. The artist discovered her artistic desire through an elective fine art module in her undergraduate at Rutgers University, where she studied sociology and later obtained an MFA under Robert Morris, famous Minimal artist. Snyder recalls, “[Painting] was literally like speaking for the first time.” Her artistic practice is a form of therapy through which she processes her lifelong anxieties, as shown through her personal and non-traditional narrative paintings.
Although Snyder lives and works in Brooklyn, she splits her time between Woodstock, New York, too. The artist primarily paints in the morning, preferring solitude and quiet, which she exacts in thoughtful, slow mark-making. Her artistic career took off, both personally and professionally, with her so-called ‘stroke paintings’ created between 1969 and 1972. Snyder generated these works as a response to Abstract Expressionism, particularly the reign of colour field painting at the time, by exploring the anatomy of painting: its process, materiality, and objecthood. These works developed an increasingly complex materiality built from gesso, paint, and everyday objects like gauze, thread, and glitter. Snyder’s additive process aims to explore the interiority and exteriority of the feminine body; she proclaims herself a feminist, but not a feminist artist.
It was the painting Dark Strokes Hope (1971) which struck me upon entering the gallery. Its array of careful and rectangular strokes (pink, purple, yellow, grey, amongst others) slide across the beige background. Each stroke of colour asserts its own space yet melts into its cohabitant; being and identity enters a state of flux. In itself, the painting is an artist’s palette which invites the viewer to experience the painting both in process and in completion, treating it as a visual narrative akin to text and film. Snyder also says, “I don’t go to openings. I don’t hang out, I never did. I’m anti-social.” Yet, the socialness of this work, and others, is immense through its subject-object interaction and sheer scale of the canvas.
Snyder’s work is held in a vast number of public collections beside Tate Modern: from the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Guggenheim Museum. She had her first show with a blue-chip gallery in 2024, aged 84, and is now co-represented by Thaddeus Ropac and Elena Zang Gallery. The artist says, “No one is more surprised than I am that I’m still making these paintings. I mean, who does that?” Stroke by stroke, Snyder continues to create paintings as fresh as the day they were made, quietly asserting herself as a pillar of contemporary art.
Bibliography
Courteau, Rose. “Joan Snyder hates art openings and hates going out.” Interview. Plaster Magazine, November 20, 2024. https://plastermagazine.com/interviews/joan-snyder-hates-art-openings-and-hates-going-out/
Martin-Gachot, Ella. “Even Joan Snyder Is Surprised That She’s Still Painting at 84: ‘I Mean, Who Does That?’.” Interview. Cultured Mag, November 19, 2024. https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2024/11/19/joan-snyder-painting-thaddeaus-ropac
Roux, Caroline. “Joan Snyder: ‘I started to believe that there is a female sensibility’.” Interview. Financial Times, November 29, 2024. https://www.ft.com/content/5dfe546d-f6ac-4c09-9aa0-8fde5ee98e15
Snyder, Joan. “Bio.” Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.joansnyder.net/about-joan-snyder
Tate. “Dark Strokes Hope (1971).” Accessed April 6, 2025. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/snyder-dark-strokes-hope-l04360