Ross Bleckner is a New York-based painter who decided to become an artist after seeing an exhibition called The Responsive Eye at MoMA in 1965. During his time at the New York University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1971, he worked with Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close. Later, in 1973, he received his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the California Institute of Arts.

In 1974, Bleckner moved into his flat in the known neighborhood, Tribeca in New York City. He opened his first solo exhibition at the Cunningham Ward Gallery in New York (1975) and began to establish a long relationship with the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1979. In 1981, Bleckner met Thomas Ammann, a Swiss art dealer who became a major collector of Bleckner’s work.

Over the past 20 years, the artist has largely worked on change, loss, and memory, and has addressed the topic of AIDS many times. Bleckner uses symbolic imagery rather than direct representation, and his work is visually elusive, with forms that constantly change focus. The artist’s works are held in collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California; the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain; and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.