Joseph Holtzman

Joseph Holtzman (b. 1957 Baltimore, MD, lives and works near Chatham, NY) has developed a highly distinctive visual language that draws equally from his expertise in the decorative arts and historic textiles as it does from art history, literature, friends and personal influences. Painting on polished slate or marble, surfaces favored by the artist for its simultaneous ability to absorb and reflect light, Holtzman—who is largely self-taught—approaches his paintings with zeal, creating abstract tableaux with loosely figurative motifs that relish in color, texture and pattern. Often installed in a Gesamtkunstwerk environment, his paintings can be seen as the cumulative result of decades spent thoroughly absorbing an encyclopedic inventory of visual delights. Holtzman was the founder, creative director, and publisher of Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors (1997-2004), the incessantly innovative and widely revered design magazine dedicated to idiosyncratic interiors. In 2004, Holtzman shuttered the magazine to focus full-time on his painting, and in 2014 presented his first solo exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which traveled to the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work has since entered their permanent collections.


Exhibitions

Joseph Holtzman
Pictures from Literature

Mar 16 – Apr 27, 2024

Frieze Los Angeles

Feb 29 – Mar 3, 2024

Joseph Holtzman
Six Recent Paintings

Oct 16 – Dec 20, 2020

Store

The Best of Nest

Hardback, 542 pages
11 x 9 inches (27.9 x 22.9 cm)
Edited by Todd Oldham
Essay by Joseph Holtzman
Phaidon, New York
November 2020


Press

March 1, 2021
Artforum
Joseph Holtzman
December 14, 2020
The Brooklyn Rail
Joseph Holtzman: Six Recent Paintings
December 8, 2020
Architectural Digest
A New Show Brings to Life the Psychedelic World of Nest’s Joseph Holtzman
November 20, 2020
Garage
Joseph Holtzmann’s Landscapes and Nocturnes
October 13, 2020
Curbed - New York Magazine
A Studio Visit With Nest Founder Turned Painter Joseph Holtzman
October 12, 2020
Curbed - New York Magazine
When Nest Was What’s Next: Looking back at the fearlessly eccentric magazine that Condé Nast was too afraid to buy.
September 29, 2020
The New York Times
Flight of Fancy
March 25, 2020
032c
“NEST.” Or, How Prozac spawned the greatest interiors magazine, ever.
March 1, 2018
Carla
Joseph Holtzman: Six Recent Paintings at Bel Ami
January 1, 2018
Apartamento
Joseph Holtzman interviewed by Sabrina Tarasoff
February 1, 2016
Mousse Magazine
In the Avant-foyer: On Decadence and De-facement
September 1, 2015
The Los Angeles Times
See why a new art show at the Hammer Museum will remind you of a comfy living room
July 29, 2015
Wallpaper
An artist returns: Joseph Holtzman’s works on show at LA’s Hammer Museum
June 30, 2015
Architectural Digest
Hammer Museum Shows Paintings by Nest Magazine Founder Joseph Holtzman
August 19, 2004
The New York Times
A Champion Of the Quirky Writes Finis
September 10, 1998
The New York Times
SCOUTING WITH: Joseph Holtzman; Guerrilla in the Midst