Altoon Sultan working in the studio, Tyler Graphics, Mount Kisco, 1990
Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002
Photographer: Marabeth COHEN-TYLER

Altoon Sultan was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948. She studied painting at Brooklyn College, receiving her BFA in 1969 and her MFA in 1971. Sultan has always produced meticulously detailed pastoral landscapes. Early in her career these were painted in oil and gouache, but she has since adopted the egg tempera technique.

Between 1989 and 1992 Sultan worked at Tyler Graphics and created several series of landscape prints depicting idyllic rural scenes in both New Zealand and California. The works were all made using drypoint method on a copper plate, and several were hand coloured by the artist.
Emilie Owens

Further reading

Chronology
 

1948
Born in Brooklyn, New York

1969
Receives Bachelor of Fine Arts, Brooklyn College, New York

1970
Attends Skowhegan Art School, Skowhegan, Maine

1971
Receives Master of Fine Arts in painting, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York First solo exhibition, First Street Gallery, New York

1971-73
Instructor in Basic Design, Brooklyn College, New York

1972-74
Receives MacDowell Colony Fellowship

1975
Included in travelling exhibition, Sons and others: women artists see men, originating at Queens Museum, New York

1975-76
Artist in residence, South Dakota Arts Council, Vermillion, South Dakota Receives Yaddo Fellowship, Saratoga Springs, New York

1979
Solo exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, New York

1982
Included in exhibitions, A private vision: contemporary art from the Graham Gund Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;Lower Manhattan from street to sky, Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown Branch, New York

1983
Receives National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant

1984
Receives Joseph Károlyi Foundation Residency Grant, Vence, France Included in exhibition, Prints en suite, Katonah Gallery, Katonah, New York

1985
Included in exhibition, American Realism: twentieth‑century drawings and watercolors, San Francisco Museum of Art, California

1985-88
Visiting critic at University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Fine Art, Philadelphia

1986
Included in exhibitions, The Foundation Veranneman invites Marlborough, Veranneman Foundation, Belgium; Public and private: American prints today, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York; travelling exhibition, Landscape, seascape, cityscape, originating at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

1987
Solo exhibition, Altoon Sultan: the exquisite image, Sioux City Art Center, Iowa

1988
Resident artist, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine

1989
Receives National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant Visiting artist, Vermont Studio School and Colony, Johnson, Vermont

1990
Visiting artist, State University of New York, Purchase Included in exhibition, Landscape painting, 1960-1990: the Italian tradition in American art, Gibbs Memorial Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina

1991
Included in travelling exhibition, The landscape in 20th Century American art: selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, originating at Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma;included in exhibition, Exquisite paintings, Orlando Museum of Art, Florida

1992
Completes two mixed-media prints at Tyler Graphics Ltd Included in travelling exhibition, Presswork: the art of women printmakers, originating at University Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota

1999
Awarded the Academy Award in Art by the American Academy of Arts and Letters Solo exhibition, Galleria Marieschi, Monza, Italy

2001
Solo exhibition, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York

2006
Included in exhibitions: Vistas and visions: selected landscapes from the permanent collection, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Three realists, Laguna College of Art and Design, California

Altoon Sultan currently lives and works in Groton, Vermont

© Tyler Graphics Ltd; revised Emilie Owens, 2007
This chronology provides an overview of selected biographical information, major solo and group exhibitions held within the artist's own lifetime.

Further information will be added to this site as the National Gallery proceeds with its research and documentation.

Last updated June 2013