Altoon Sultan


Altoon Sultan is an American artist known for her small-scale egg tempera paintings depicting details of agricultural machinery. Working in a tradition of formalist realism, her works nevertheless treat her subject matter like found abstractions. Sultan lives and works in Groton, Vermont.

Early life and education

Sultan was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1969 and a Master of Fine Arts in 1971 from Brooklyn College, where she studied painting with Philip Pearlstein and Lois Dodd. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Work

Sultan’s paintings are often based on photographs she has taken of agricultural landscapes and equipment. Her technique combines representational detail with simplified forms and bold use of color, sometimes compared to minimalist approaches to composition. She frequently works in egg tempera on calfskin parchment.
In addition to painting, Sultan writes about art and maintains Studio and Garden, a blog featuring her photography, reflections on her practice, and exhibition commentary.

Career

Sultan has exhibited in the United States and internationally since the 1970s. Her work has been shown at Marlborough Gallery, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, McKenzie Fine Art, Chris Sharp Gallery, Hollybush Gardens, and Zero….

Selected solo exhibitions

  • 1979–1991: Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY
  • 2007: Monuments of Architecture, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, NY
  • 2009: Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
  • 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019: McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY
  • 2020: Drawings and a Painting, Feuilleton, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2021: Paintings, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2022: Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO
  • 2023: Altoon Sultan, Hollybush Gardens, London, UK
  • 2024: New Paintings, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2025: Paintings, Zero…, Milan, Italy

    Selected group exhibitions

  • 1984: American Realism: Twentieth Century Drawings and Watercolors, San Francisco [Museum of Modern Art], San Francisco, CA
  • 1991: The Landscape in 20th Century American Art, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK
  • 2017: Philip Pearlstein: A Legacy of Influence, Princeton, NJ
  • 2021: The Stubborn Influence of Painting, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, CO
  • 2022: A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2022: Still Life and the Poetry of Place, Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY

    Collections

Sultan’s work is included in several public collections, including the: