Early in her career, Jo Baer was among a small cohort of New York City artists who developed Minimalism. Her work appeared in the Guggenheim Museum and several notable galleries during the 1960s.
Then, after a midcareer retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1975, she left nonrepresentational art and New York City behind. Settling in Amsterdam, where she would spend her later years, she found inspiration in cave paintings and ancient history. Her work took on a collagelike quality, featuring horses and other natural features.
By the end of her career, Ms. Baer had found a through line in her work: her use of color. She vociferously questioned the dogmatic separation of abstract and representational art that she and her peers had once taken for granted.
Ms. Baer died on Jan. 24 at her home in Amsterdam. She was 95.
Here’s her progression as an artist, in photos:
After several years as a celebrated Minimalist, Ms. Baer did an about-face. “Modern avant-garde art died in the seventh decade of the 20th century,” she wrote in 1983. “I am no longer an abstract artist.”
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