James Little (b. 1952, Memphis, TN)
Little holds a BFA from the Memphis Academy of Art and an MFA from Syracuse University. He is a 2009 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painting. In addition to being featured prominently in the 2022 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, his work has been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world, including at MoMA P.S.1, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; and the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. In 2022, Little participated in a historic collaboration for Duke Ellington’s conceptual Sacred Concerts series at the Lincoln Center, New York, with the New York Choral Society at the New School for Social Research and the Schomburg Center in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: Petzel, New York (2024); Kavi Gupta, Chicago (2022); Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis (2022); Louis Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood (2020); and June Kelly Gallery, New York (2018).
His paintings are represented in the collections of numerous public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond; The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York; The Menil Collection, Houston; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis; Maatschappij Arti Et Amicitiae, Amsterdam; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton; Tennessee State Museum, Nashville; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; and the Newark Museum, Newark.
My intention is to eliminate predictability and not be repetitive. Music can be repetitive, but there is always change, chords, syncopation, rhythm. I try to accomplish something similar in my art, something that is more than a pattern or a set of regulations. I prefer to not have music playing while I’m working because painting with liquified wax is nothing to play around with. I love looking at each finished painting with music so I can actually focus and listen.
1952 Born in Memphis, Tennessee
1974 Graduates with a BFA in Fine Art from Memphis Academy of Art
1976 Earns his MFA at Syracuse University
1980 Little's work is included in the exhibition "Afro-American Abstraction" at MoMA PS1
1982 Alternative Museum in New York hosts James Little's first NY solo exhibition
1987 Exhibits new paintings with Liz Harris Gallery in Boston
1988 Begins working with June Kelly Gallery with two exhibitions
1990 Debuts tondo and oval paintings in New York
1992 Returns to Syracuse Univeristy with a selection of works over the past decade
1998 Participates in traveling institutional group exhibition, including De Beyerd Center for Contemporary Art and the Frans Hals Museum
2000 New York group exhibitions at The Painting Center and Smack Mellon Studios
2002 Group exhibitions continue throughout the US at The Station in Houston
2004 Painting acquired by The Studio Museum in Harlem is exhibited in group exhibition
2005 Solo exhibition at G. R. N'Namdi Gallery accompanied my catalogue and essays
2007 Installs solo institutional exhibition at Station Museum of Contemporary Art
2009 Third solo exhibition at June Kelly Gallery
2010 Traveling exhibition of American abstract paintings at the University of Maryland and University of Dlaware
2011 Fourth solo exhibition with June Kelly Gallery in New York
2012 Participates in survey of Southern Abstraction at the Mobile Museum of Art
2015 Institutional group exhibition at the Newark Museum
2016 Debut solo exhibition in Los Angeles with Louis Stern Fine Arts of "Dots and Slants" paintings
Included in show on painting in the 1970s at The Studio Museum in Harlem
2020 Painting from permanent collection of Saint Louis Art Museum included in The Shape of Abstraction
2021 Begins working with Kavi Gupta in Chicago
Participates in traveling museum exhibition "The Dirty South" at the Virginia Museum of Fine arts and Crystal Bridges, Arksansas
2022 Begins working with Petzel Gallery in New York
Included in The Whitney Biennial 2022
Group exhibition at the Albright-Knox
Solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta, Chicago
2023 Debut solo exhibition "Conversations" at Petzel, New York
Included in group exhibition "An Apartment of Ghosts" at Petzel, New York
2024 Second solo exhibition and debut in Chelsea "Affirmed/Actions" at Petzel, New York
Included in group exhibitions "Edges of Ailey" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York