Barbara Steinberg

Barbara Steinberg was born in Philadelphia in 1943. From a very young age, she spent evenings and weekends studying in various art schools around the city, eventually being awarded both art and academic scholarships to Smith College in Massachusetts. Whilst at Smith, she won a scholarship to the Yale University Summer School of Art and Music.  On graduating from Smith, she received a grant to study sculpture in England, first with Ralph Brown at the West of England College of Art, then privately with Michael Ayrton in London.  She returned briefly to America, to teach sculpture and take a Master of Fine Arts Degree at California State University at Long Beach.

In 1970, she returned to live permanently in London.  Since then, she has exhibited in many group shows throughout the UK, and has had several solo exhibitions, most notably at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh, the Brewhouse Arts Centre in Somerset, and the Bridport Arts Centre in Dorset.  Since 2007, she has been represented by the Signal Gallery in Hoxton, London.

After spending some twenty years making sculpture, Steinberg returned to painting. Very soon she eliminated the figure from her work, concentrating solely on landscape. These landscapes became increasingly abstract, as she searched for some kind of universality of form and content, beneath and beyond the transient effects of light and time.  Her current paintings are informed by a concern with myth and legend.  They are landscapes, but landscapes, perhaps, that we imagine or dream.

In 2009, Barbara Steinberg's solo show, Panoply, was open to the public from 20 February 2009 to 20 March 2009.  The show was featured by the Telegraph on-line 16/17 February 2009. In connection with the show, Barbara Steinberg's work was reviewed by Alison Oldham in the 26 February edition of the Ham & High and also in the March 2009 edition of Art of England.

On 29 January 2010, a new, joint show Mortal/Immortal opened at the Signal Gallery, featuring Barbara Steinberg and Crawfurd Adamson. In the words of the gallery: "The combination of the two styles of work in the gallery should be fascinating and illuminating for anyone interested in the art of painting - the restrained worldliness of Adamson's lonely figures juxtaposed with Steinberg's other-worldly and powerful imaginary worlds. What unites the two artists is the love of and absolute mastery of the art of painting". Despite the wintry weather in February many people proved to be interested in the art of painting by visiting the show.