David Bates

Installation Images

Selected Works

David Bates
Self Portrait with Drawing, 2011
Oil on canvas
24 × 16 in
 
 
David Bates
Birds and Snake, 2020
Oil on canvas
30h x 40w in
 
 
David Bates
Ed Walker, 1988
Oil on board
24h x 20w in
David Bates
Magnolia in a Chair, 2008
Oil on canvas
60h x 40w in
David Bates
Man with Shell, 1989
Oil on board
44h x 32w in
David Bates
Oleander Branch, 2017
Oil on canvas
16h x 20w in
 
David Bates
The Knockout, 1985
Oil on canvas
78h x 96w in
 

Biography

David Bates is a Dallas native and widely recognized as one of the most acclaimed Texas artists. After receiving a BFA from Southern Methodist University in 1975, he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program before returning to SMU to earn his MFA in 1978. Upon finishing graduate school, Bates participated in group exhibitions that traveled to museums around the country, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. In 1987, Bates was selected for the prestigious Whitney Biennial, and in 1988, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth organized a traveling exhibition of his work. Since then, several important exhibitions have featured Bates’ art, including a joint retrospective organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2014.

Best known for his paintings on canvas or panel, Bates is also prolific in sculpture and works on paper. His work explores the formal limitations of medium and is recognizable for its bold forms and dark outlines. Through both subject matter and style, Bates’ paintings clearly reference American Regionalism, and his still lifes frequently connect to modernists such as Henri Matisse. More than forty museums across the country house work by Bates in their permanent collections, including the Dallas Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Whitney Museum of American Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, Nebraska, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the El Paso Museum of Art; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Bates continues to live and work in Dallas, Texas.

Exhibitions

On-site and Individual Works

David Bates

Grassy Lake
Talley Dunn Gallery
October 2 – December 4, 2021

David Bates

Portraits of Flowers
Talley Dunn Gallery
August 25 – October 13, 2018

David Bates

On Paper
Talley Dunn Gallery
October 20 – December 16, 2017

David Bates

David Bates: Painting and Sculpture
Talley Dunn Gallery
August 27 – October 29, 2016

David Bates

David Bates: Painting and Sculpture
Talley Dunn Gallery
April 5 – May 24, 2014

Off-site

David Bates

Nasher Sculpture Center
February 9 – May 11, 2014

David Bates

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
February 9 – May 11, 2014

Videos

Press

Dallas Morning News

“Artist David Bates understands the savagery of Louisiana Flooding” 
by Michael Granberry
August 2016

Arts and Culture Texas

“In Touch with the ‘Cave-Wall’ Mindset” 
by Devon Britt-Darby
February 3, 2014

Garden & Gun

“Southern Masters: David Bates” 
by Julia Reed
June/July 2014