Artist Spotlight: Barbara Cleary
At Rosetta Creative Boutique, we love celebrating artists whose work transports you—just like a great journey. This month’s Artist Spotlight shines on Barbara Cleary (1935–2010), an American landscape painter whose canvases feel like open air and sunlit memory.
Biography: Barbara Cleary was an American landscape painter from Oklahoma whose work drew deeply on the light and forms of the Southwest as well as scenes from the Great Plains and New England coasts. She began her career in watercolor in the 1960s and later embraced oils—especially plein-air work—after encountering an exhibition of the Russian-American master Nicolai Fechin in the 1990s. Her paintings balance immediacy with a meditative sense of place, reflecting her belief that nature is the wellspring of creative energy. In 2014, the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art mounted Barbara Cleary: Natural Journey, highlighting the geographic breadth of her subjects—from Kansas arboretums and eastern Oklahoma waterways to the deserts of New Mexico and the rocky shores of Maine.
Cleary studied with notable American watercolorists—including Edgar Whitney, John Pike, and Douglas Walton—and held degrees from the University of Oklahoma and Central State University. Over time her work moved toward richly colored oil landscapes while retaining the compositional clarity of her watercolor training. Her paintings are represented in several US museum collections, among them the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, the Museum of the Southwest, the Rockwell Museum (a Smithsonian Affiliate), the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University, and the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University. Her estate and family continue to keep her work accessible through exhibitions and licensed prints.
Ready to bring this spirit of place into your home? Explore our curated Wall Art collection to discover prints of Barbara Cleary's work, as well as the work of other artists.
