Press
This Watercolorist Thinks Big
Barbara Ernst Prey super-sizes watercolor, a medium often reserved for smaller works, for MassMoCA’s new wing Building 6. Continue reading
Maine artist makes what may be the world’s largest watercolor
BY BOB KEYES STAFF WRITER PORT CLYDE — Barbara Prey has a golden resume: a bachelor’s degree from Williams College, a master’s from Harvard and a Fulbright scholarship, which she used … Continue reading
There’s Only One Visual Artist on the NEA’s Board. Here’s What She Thinks of the Imperiled Organization’s Future
We spoke to artist Barbara Prey about her career, her role on the National Council on the Arts, and how the NEA will fare in Trump’s America. Henri Neuendorf, August … Continue reading
The Story Behind the World’s Largest Watercolor Painting
The massive artwork marks the opening of the MASS MoCA’s new 130,000-square-foot wing, which makes it the largest contemporary art museum in the U.S. Continue reading
The World’s Largest Watercolor Goes on Display at MASS MoCA
VICE by Andrew Nunes — Barbara Ernst Prey’s gigantic painting is on view at the North Adams institution. MASS MoCA just unveiled Building 6, a massive addition of 130,000 square … Continue reading
Mass MoCA thinks big with latest expansion
THE BOSTON GLOBE by Malcolm Gay NORTH ADAMS — When the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opens its newly renovated Building 6 on May 28, the expansion will give this 16-acre … Continue reading
A Colorful Life: Barbara Prey paints landscapes that reflect both an inner and outer world
Prey may be one of America’s most visible artists, in that her work is shown not only in galleries and museums, embassies and presidential libraries on earth, but also, in a way, in outer space. Continue reading
BARBARA ERNST PREY: At Home on Long Island
“Starving artist” is a cliché for a reason. It’s how most artists begin, and often end, their careers. But Barbara Ernst Prey has never been one to follow the crowd. … Continue reading
Barbara Prey Prints Featured in the Wall Street Journal’s 2014 Art Gift Guide
The WSJ’s Art Gift Guide Tired of giving plaid scarves and gift cards for the holidays? Here are ideas for how to give art as a gift … Continue reading
Barbara Prey Featured on Newsday Magazine Cover
Barbara Ernst Prey’s artworks have global reach, from U.S. embassies to the White House Click Here for PDF Version By JAN TYLER Special to Newsday The life of Barbara Ernst … Continue reading
Barbara Prey Featured in VIE Magazine
An American Masterpiece By Tori Phelps Acclaimed artist Barbara Ernst Prey puts down her paintbrush to discuss White House requests, the Williams Mafia, and German princes PDF: Vie Magazine – An … Continue reading
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH ARTIST BARBARA ERNST PREY – Down East Magazine
Interview with Laura Serino for the Special 60th Anniversary Issue of Down East Magazine. Barbara painting the Nasa commissioned x-43, the fastest aircraft in the world, right before takeoff. 1/ … Continue reading
“Chronicling the Space Age in Watercolor: The Work of Barbara Prey” in SciArt in America
Read the full article about Prey’s paintings commissioned by NASA Art Program here.
Prey’s Art Plumbs the Depths of her World
It’s easy to understand why Barbara Ernst Prey has been recognized as one of the most significant American artists of this century. Continue reading
Art World with Nancy Mathews
Art World with Nancy Mathews interviews Barbara Ernst Prey
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Maine Public Radio interview’s Barbara
Artist Barbara Ernst Prey is known for the bold hues in her watercolor paintings, which can be found in collections at the Smithsonian, the White House and the Kennedy Space Center. Continue reading
Boston Globe Features Barbara’s Exhibition
“New Works: Meditations on the Environment,” Prey’s exhibit of 40 watercolors, dry-brush, and oil paintings of the Berkshires and more. Daily 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. through Sept. 1. Free. Barbara Prey Gallery, 71 Spring St., Williamstown. 413-884-6184. Continue reading
Barbara’s Interview on The National Endowment for the Arts Website
Visual artist Barbara Ernst Prey has served on the NEA’s National Council on the Arts since 2008. A distinguished watercolorist, Prey’s work has been collected by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the White House, among others. Continue reading
National Endowment for the Arts Website – Grant Spotlight: National Council on the Arts Edition
The National Endowment for the Arts has asked Barbara to share some of her thoughts about NEA supported projects that have especially resonated with her.
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Williams College Museum of Art – Art of the Month Club: Barbara Ernst Prey
The Art of the Month Club is a regular feature on the Williams College Museum of Art blog. Each month we invite someone special to write about a work from our collection. This month we have selected artist Barbara Ernst Prey to reveal and discuss her favorite work. Continue reading
Summer Fun- National Council on the Arts Edition
For the past 30 years I have had an annual exhibition in Maine. I am currently preparing for this year’s exhibit Barbara Ernst Prey: Forty Years of Painting at Blue Water Fine Arts Gallery in Port Clyde, Maine. Continue reading
The New York Times
Huntington “Nocturne IV,” a watercolor by Barbara Ernst Prey, is on display at the Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue, through Jan. 8. Information: (631) 351-3250; heckscher.org. Continue reading
Newsday
Celebrating Barbara Ernst Prey
The Heckscher Museum honors artist Barbara Ernst Prey of Oyster Bay with a “Celebrate Achievement Benefit Gala.” Continue reading
Transcending Boarders: The Intersections of Arts, Science, Technology, and Society on a Global Stage
[Video] Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts speaking about Barbara’s artwork at the recent Art and Science Symposium sponsored by the Salzburg Global Seminar and The National Endowment in Washington D.C. Continue reading
CBS Evening News: NASA | Art: 50 Years of Exploration Tour
[Video] A tour of the works from NASA’s art collection highlighting Barbara Ernst Prey. Continue reading
WCSH Channel 6: Renowned Artist Barbara Prey Reflects on Space Shuttle Program
[Video] Port Clyde is a long way from Cape Canaveral. But they are both part of the world of artist Barbara Ernst Prey. Continue reading
Voice of America: Artists Immortalizing Space Travel Spanning 50 Years of Exploration
[Video] For a half-century, the US space agency has commissioned artists to document its missions. Barbara Ernst Prey is now one of these elite artists to receive the honor to do four commissioned works for NASA. Continue reading
100 Artists of New England: Ashley Rooney
I am an artist because it is in my nature. My mother was an artist and Head of the Design Department at Pratt Art Institute. I grew up outside New York, but my roots go back to the early 1700s in New England. Continue reading
NEA.gov: The Artist’s Role in the Community: Six Perspectives
[Video] The National Endowment for the Arts – The Artist’s Role in the Community: Six Perspectives, including musicians Andrew Bird and Irvin Mayfield Jr., renowned painter and National Council for the Arts Member Barbara Ernst Prey, James Ballinger, Director of Phoenix Museum of Art, and visual artist Mike Weber. Continue reading
Williams Club Newsletter
Williams Women at the Helm of American Art
On Friday, December 11, The Club hosted four of the top players in today’s American art world. Member and internationally recognized artist Barbara Ernst Prey ’79 moderated. Continue reading
Robb Report
The Maine Event
Artist Barbara Ernst Prey, a native New Yorker, finds inspiration for her large – scale canvases in a small fishing community in Maine. Continue reading
The Art Newspaper
Comings and Goings
Watercolour artist Barbara Ernst Prey has been confirmed by the US Senate to serve for a six-year term on the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Continue reading
Newsday
Portrait of Speed
A painting by Barbara Ernst Prey of Oyster Bay is part of “NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration,” a traveling exhibit marking the space agency’s 50th anniversary. The artist, who grew up in Manhasset, talked with Newsday about her career and the paintings she’s done during the past 35 years. Continue reading
Artforum
Artist Barbara Prey to Serve on National Council on the Arts
Artist Barbara Ernst Prey has been confirmed by the US Senate to serve on the National Council on the Arts, an advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts. The confirmation follows her nomination by President Bush to serve on the council. Continue reading
More Magazine
Where a Painter Travels for a Visual Feast
Barbara Ernst Prey, 51, is best known for her American landscapes, but she gets ideas from all over the world. “I’m never really on vacation,” the Long Island native says, “I’m always looking.” Continue reading
Interview with Artist Barbara Prey and Curator Sarah Cash of The Corcoran Gallery of Art
[Video] Barbara discusses her first major international exhibit “An American View” in Paris at the Mona Bismarck Foundation. Continue reading
Fine Art Connoisseur
Out and About
Despite a transit strike, admirers of the American artist Barbara Ernst Prey (b. 1957) turned out en masse on October 18 to celebrate her new exhibition at Paris’s Mona Bismarck Foundation, An American View. Continue reading
The Wall Street Journal
Time Off/Exhibit Europe: An American View
“An American View: Barbara Ernst Prey”: Drawing from the tradition of renowned American artists such as Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper Continue reading
Paris Capitale
Mona Bismarck Foundation: An American View
(English translation below)
Une étonnante exposition d’aquarelles de l’artiste Barbara Ernst Prey, originaire de Long Island, qui nous propose un voyage au milieu des symboles de la société américaine et du Maine, qu’elle connait si bien. Continue reading
Women’s Wear Daily
On The Drawing Board
An American in Paris: Hubert Givenchy, his partner Philippe Venet, and U.S. Ambassador to France Craig Roberts Stapleton and his wife were among the guests at the Mona Bismarck Foundation Continue reading
Barbara Ernst Prey: “An American View” Retrospective
[Video] Barbara Ernst Prey: “An American View” The Paris retrospective of this world renowned American watercolorists, curated by Corcoran Gallery of Art Curator, Sarah Cash. Continue reading
USA Today Magazine
Paris, long known for its art and culture, is pleased to announce the arrival of American watercolorist Barbara Ernst Prey. Continue reading
Newsday
Visions of Long Island, All Over the Map
From an 1875 oil painting of Target Rock, the historic boulder just off a beach in Lloyd Neck, to a couple of moody seascapes painted only last year, the new exhibit at Huntington’s Heckscher Museum spans two centuries of artists’ visions of Long Island.
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Harvard Magazine
Gallery High Art
Since its founding, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has commissioned artists to depict explorations of the upper atmosphere and of space. Norman Rockwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Annie Leibovitz are among those who’ve done so. Another is Barbara Ernst Prey, M.Div. ’86, who has painted four watercolors for NASA since 2003. Continue reading
The New York Sun
So Watery…The Works of Barbara Ernst Prey on Exhibit: Works on Water
The works of Barbara Ernst Prey, featured in the exhibit “Works on Water,” include controlled scenes in watercolors from her home in Continue reading
The Wall Street Journal
Time Off/Exhibit: Works on Water
This exhibit showcases the deft hand and delicate sensibility of renowned landscape artist Barbara Ernst Prey. Continue reading
ARTnews
The Art of Maine: Where Tradition Meets the Cutting Edge
What seems to be an almost impossible range, from Maine to outer space, can be found within the repertoire of one artist, Barbara Ernst Prey, who shows in Port Clyde this summer.
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The Washington Post
An Artist Ready for Liftoff
At least she’s logging in frequent-flier miles. Landscape artist Barbara Ernst Prey is commissioned by NASA to capture the launch of the Discovery space shuttle. Continue reading
Newsday
An Artist on a Space Mission
An artist grounded for more than three decades in the watercolor landscapes of rural North America, Barbara Ernst Prey received her first request from NASA in 2003.
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The New York Times
Artist Shooting for the Stars
As an official portrait artist for NASA, Barbara Ernst Prey has paid tribute to the space shuttle Columbia, traveled to the Mojave Desert to capture the X-43 in flight and constructed her own model of a space station that wasn’t built yet, the better to imagine what it would look like. Continue reading
Distinction Magazine
2005 March Women of Distinction
It’s hard not to name-drop when talking about Barbara Ernst Prey and her work as a watercolor artist. Born in Manhasset, Prey has fond memories of sailing on Manhasset Bay. Now living in Oyster Bay, she is inspired by its working waterfront and rustic old barns. Continue reading
The New York Times
She Answered a Call from Washington
Last March, Barbara Ernst Prey, a watercolor artist who grew up in Manhasset and lives in Oyster Bay, received a telephone call from Laura Bush’s chief of staff asking her if she would like to create a painting for this year’s White House Christmas card. Continue reading
The New Yorker
The Talk of the Town
Longtime recipients of the annual Prey family Christmas card – fellow parishioners of the First Presbyterian Church in Oyster Bay, Long Island; summer residents in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine; the United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic – may have noticed something familiar about this year’s edition. Continue reading
Los Angeles Times
Painter Seeing a Bigger Picture
PORT CLYDE, Maine — It should have been a summer of normalcy and rest, if not self-congratulations, for Barbara Ernst Prey. She made her usual trek from her main home on Long Island to the peninsula here where over the last three decades she has developed her skills as a watercolorist specializing in bright, uncluttered paintings of the sort of elemental objects — fishing boats, wildflowers, robust Maine houses — that have long attracted artists to these parts. Continue reading
CNN’s Carol Lin Interviews Barbara Prey about her painting “Colombia Tribute”
[Video] Barbara’s choice in her subject was meant to immortalize the hopes and dreams of the Colombia crew. Continue reading
The Associated Press
Artist Fulfills New Mission of NASA
Until December, artist Barbara Prey’s best known works were watercolors of scenes in rural Maine – rowboats, farmhouses and ocean views. Then President Bush sent out a Christmas card featuring one of her paintings that was seen by more than a million people worldwide. Continue reading
The Washington Post
The Fine Art of the Space Age
After the space shuttle Columbia exploded on Feb. 1, NASA asked New York artist Barbara Ernst Prey to paint a memorial for the seven astronauts who died on board. Continue reading
The Boston Globe
Artist Reaches New Heights
PICTURE THIS It was an honor, but a bit daunting as well, says Barbara Ernst Prey of her commission from NASA. The artist, a New York native who summers in Maine, was asked to do the official portrait of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated during reentry a year ago. (Other painters who’ve worked for the space agency include Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.) Continue reading
Newsday
Trace of Terror on Canvas
Oyster Bay artist Barbara Ernst Prey was crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge on Sept. 11, 2001, listening to the car radio, when she both heard and saw the unforgettable: “I was hearing the news as it was breaking, and I have this vivid image of seeing the towers on fire,” she recalled recently. “I just remember the smoke going across to Brooklyn.” Continue reading
The New York Times
Painting a Still Life that Moves at 17,000 M.P.H
The Celestron telescope that hulks, out of place and outnumbered by mahogany antiques, in the dining room corner was a whimsical Christmas gift from her to her family three years back. Until now, along with an unpublished astronomy book that her grandfather wrote, it represented the artist Barbara Ernst Prey’s karmic relationship to outer space. But no more. Continue reading