File Under: b

Colleen Barry was born in 1951 in Holland, MI. She earned a B.A. in weaving and sculpture from California State University at Chico in 1973 and an M.F.A. in weaving and textile design from Edinboro State University, Pennsylvania, in 1980. She has taught papermaking and fiber classes at California State University and in work-shops throughout California. Barry's work has been exhibited in museums and art centers throughout the United States, including the Fresno Art Center and Museum, California, the Palo Alto Cultural Arts Center, California, and Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. She has completed several large-scale public commissions, including installations for the Hall of Justice Building, Redwing, California, and the Municipal Court, Sacramento, California. The artist makes mixed-media pieces she describes as books, embedding found objects, such as rusted nails, zippers, broken pencils, and old buttons, within soft-hued, textured handmade paper. By juxtaposing the organic and the industrial, Barry comments on the relationship between urban society and the natural environment.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Tom Barrow was born in 1938 in Kansas City, Missouri. He received a B.F.A. in graphic design from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1963 and an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design in 1967. He studied photography with Aaron Siskind. He has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Photographers Fellowships. Barrow has had exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been included in exhibitions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, and the Houston Center for Photography. Barrow has made many photographs on the theme of houses and homes and is known for a series of urban landscapes called the "Cancellation Series" because of the X marked across each of the images. Another of his series explores the subject of American icons and is composed of large-scale Polaroid images that have been pieced together.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Martin Barrett was born in Woodford Bridge in Essex in 1953. He was one of five sons. Barrett studied on the Foundation course in Art and Design at Loughton College in 1976-77, then went on to a B.A. in Fine Art at Portsmouth Polytechnic from 1977-1980 and an M.A. in Fine Art Printmaking at Chelsea College of Art from 1980-1981. He earned a Ph.D. in Fine Art at the University of East London. Married with two children, he lives and works in East London. Martin lectures in the School of Art and the Digital Industries at the University of East London and teaches on the Illustration, Printmaking and Graphic Design programs. In 2006 he formed the AVA Drawing Research Group;  it’s aim to bring together the diversity of drawing practice found in a school that includes: Architecture, Fine Art, Graphic Design, Photography, Moving Image, Animation, Illustration, Digital Media, Fashion Design and Textiles.

www.martinbarrett.co.uk/

Franz Bader was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1903. He apprenticed as a bookseller but was forced to flee Austria in 1939 when Hitler's army invaded. He arrived in New York and then moved to Washington, D.C. Bader worked in and ultimately acquired a bookshop, where he showed art, primarily by local artists, in the back room. He was one of the few people exhibiting modern art in Washington at the time and was among the first to show the work of Gene Davis, Jacob Kainen, and Peter Milton. Bader described his own photography as his "third life," which he took up late in his career. He focused on elements and objects often overlooked, seeking out their inherent aesthetic qualities. Bader's work has been exhibited at museums and galleries in Washington and elsewhere. He died in 1994.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.