Barbara Rossi

Barbara Rossi was born in Chicago in 1940. She earned her master’s degree in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1970. As a student of Ray Yoshida, she found inspiration in a range of artistic movements and vernacular objects, eventually developing what would become a lifelong interest in Indian miniature painting. She admired the exquisite brushwork and scenes-within-scenes of Mughal miniatures, and was moved to employ these devices in her own work. Rossi continued to explore these interests after graduate school and made several trips to India. She took a brief hiatus from painting and teaching to organize a traveling exhibition of Indian miniatures and authored a book on the subject, entitled From the Ocean of Painting: India’s Popular Paintings, 1589 to the Present (1998, Oxford University Press).

Rossi was introduced to the Chicago Imagists through her participation in the 1968 Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, an annual showcase of new art from the area at the Hyde Park Art Center. She continued to show with this group of artists throughout the 1970s.

Since 1971, she has taught painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rossi has exhibited internationally, and her works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; the Milwaukee Museum of Contemporary Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the David and Alfred Smart Museum, the University of Chicago; and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.