W&L Art Professor to be Featured in Solo Exhibition in New York City Emma Steinkraus’ exhibition “Princess Botticelli” opens June 29 at the 1969 Gallery in Tribeca

By Brian Laubscher
June 28, 2023

Emma Steinkraus, assistant professor of art at Washington and Lee University, will have her paintings featured in a solo exhibition at the 1969 Gallery in New York City.

Steinkraus’ exhibition “Princess Botticelli” includes an opening reception on June 29 and will be featured through August 12 at the gallery located at 39 White Street in Tribeca. This is her debut solo exhibition with the 1969 Gallery, where she was an artist-in-residence in 2022.

“This is my first big solo show in New York, so it definitely feels like a milestone,” said Steinkraus. “It’s great to be in Tribeca where there’s such a vibrant gallery scene and 1969 Gallery has been incredibly supportive of my vision, from letting me paint the walls with huge pink archs to planning a poetry reading in conjunction with the show.”

Steinkraus presents 10 individual paintings in her exhibit, which are the result of a thoughtful exploration of her surrounding world. Her work combines colorful figurative painting with photo transfers and installations to explore gender, myth-making, and the more-than-human world. The pieces draw on a wide range of references, especially hybridizing the pop culture of her girlhood with Renaissance and Symbolist painting. Ecological themes are a persistent throughline, inspired by her childhood in the Arkansas Ozarks, her current life in the Shenandoah Valley, and her need to process the catastrophic ongoing destruction of the biosphere. Nearly all of Steinkraus’ work cultivates an ecological gaze in which humans are depicted alongside non-human species rendered with equal sensitivity and attention.

The 1969 Gallery was founded in 2016 as a contemporary art gallery. Through solo/group/external exhibitions and art fair presentations, the gallery has supported the careers of its represented artists and a broader community of artists primarily devoted to painting.

Steinkraus is completing her first year as a member of the W&L faculty. She earned a B.A. in studio art from Williams College and an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Iowa.

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