Bio 

Barbara Trachtenberg was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 1978—when she was a young wife and mother. She helped support her family as a teacher and administrator in a hospital school for students with multiple handicaps in NH, continuing into the mid-80s and in a residential school for gifted, emotionally challenged youth. She has written about that experience in short fiction and by 1981, completed two master's degrees—in special education (Keene State) and counseling psychology (Antioch). Moving to Boston in the mid-80s to teach in Chelsea, MA, an immigrant city, she took a sabbatical to teach English literature in Mexico and improve her Spanish. She returned as a school psychologist, and completed a doctorate in 1995 (BU) in culture and literacy. Her dissertation—based on ethnographies of poor single Central American mothers of school children—sought the women’s perceptions of their own overcoming of obstacles to acculturation in the urban US. She retired at 62 to return to her early love of abstract art. Immigrant and women’s/girls’ issues are subjects in her work.

A lifelong traveler, Trachtenberg began exhibiting her street photography in France and Havana. She soon moved to painting, collage, and assemblage, exhibiting throughout New England since 1989.

Her memberships and juried group exhibitions include Galatea in Boston’s artist district; group shows in Greater Boston’s galleries and university galleries; Rockport Art Association & Museum’s Experimental Group; Rocky Neck Art Association, CambridgeArt and ConcordArt and many invited small group shows at honeyjonesstudio Gallery, Cambridge. Her SOLO shows include Havana, Cambridge, MA and rural France.. Trachtenberg was artist in residence at CAMAC (Marnay-sur-Seine, France) and has an online presence online Berlin site of works on paper. She was a 2020 Northeast Regional Liaison as a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She is an interviewer for servas.org, an international peace organization she joined in 2015.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I am a painter and collagist who loves color and sometimes leaves it. Process is key to my relationship with a work—I do not plan my work. Working in the largest space I can find to move in, I sweep strokes and connect disparate elements, adding viscosity, impasto, texture, shape and color. Revising old work, playing with accidental composition, I work messy—tearing, painting without gloves, using what’s at hand. Transience, impermanence, decay and joy, disorder and letting go are embedded in the piece. I’m spontaneous, emotional, sensory. I use strong colors and old broken things, and if figures emerge, I dialogue with aspects of myself—listening, sniffing, watching. Working with bold strokes, automatic gestures and texture, found, used, worn items, refuse from the process itself are my physical relationship with my work.

Non-traditional beauty, made to music and movement, through color and juxtaposed shapes, reflect Boston’s urban push. A vital and vulgar American life influences my work. I hike among fragments of nature where random configurations inspire me. Working spontaneously, without plan, I paint visceral and viscous. My process acknowledges there’s no answer to anything, really—life is suffering and joy, confusion and clarity, rife with contradictions. Aging, decay, letting go, from old age to childhood and back.

Energy and battling emotions, movement and spontaneity push rich color and texture from that first mark. Imagery and characters emerge in the abstract. A daughter of Hungarian and Russian immigrants, I was a teacher for severely handicapped children, a school psychologist and a professor of applied linguistics. I interviewed single Central American refugee mothers of the mid 1980s about their strategies of acculturating and now volunteer with Boston area refugee organizations. An international street photographer since the early 1980s, I’ve had solo shows in Havana, Cuba, Cambridge, Boston, and rural France. My work has moved exclusively to mixed media painting exhibited in solo, and group shows throughout Greater Boston. I have a doctorate in literacy, language and cultural studies and masters degrees in education and psychology. I’m a MacDowell Colony Fellow. Since covid-19, I work in my home studio.

RESUME

2025

  • MosesianArts: Mixed Media Painting, Ariadne’s Thread

  • Hyde Park Art Association, Hyde Park, MA, Images Then Words: painting Young Worker and poetry response to photograph, The Piano: January 25-February 14

  • Cambridge Art Association, MA: 2025 Members Prize Show, JUROR: Shana Dumont Garr, 1/30-4/25; ARTIST OF THE YEAR AWARD

  • ArtCake Popup: New York City, June, 2025

2024

  • Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis Art Exhibition, 3 paintings, Brookline, MA

  • Newton Art Association at Wedeman Gallery, Lasell University, Newton, MA

  • Hyde Park Art Assocation: at Boston City Hall and the Menino Art Center; Juried Exhibition: monoprint

  • Concord Art Association: Acrylic on Paper, “Darkness and Light,” JUROR: John Nolan, Montserrat College/Director, Hallspace Gallery, Boston, MA

  • Cambridge Art Association: “The Boat,” Acrylic on Canvas, Members’ Juried Exhibition: Cambridge, MA, JUROR: Mike Carroll

  • Newton Art Association: “ Fisherman, Jamaica Pond,” acrylic on paper; JUROR: Ruth Scotch

2023

  • FenceART: Annual 2023, JURIED

  • honeyjonesstudio Gallery

  • PIANOCRAFT GALLERY: HARMONY: Art and Music at the Piano Factory, JURIED

  • Rockport Art Association & Museum: Juried National, Hibbard & Maddocks Galleries, Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director of the Mass Cultural Council

  • Mary Schein Fall Salon: Cambridge Art Association, University Place Gallery, Harvard Square

  • Brickbottom Members’ Exhibition

  • 3-PERSON Exhibition, Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA

    Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA

  • Rockport Art Association and Museum, Contributing Members’ Show

  • Charles Fine Art Gallery, Gloucester, MA, JURIED, Truro, oil on panel

  • Mosesian Art Center: Watertown, MA, JURIOR, Boriana Kantcheva

  • Talking Points, JUROR: Caron Tabb, Cambridge College Town Common Gallery with CambridgeArt

  • Newton Art Association: Juried Exhibition, Allen Art Center, Newton, MA

2022

  • North Shore Art Association, Gloucester, Exhibit New England

  • Jane Deering Gallery, Experimental Group of the Rockport Art Association & Museum

  • Suzuki School of Music, Newton Art Association

  • Human Being – Being Human, JURIED, PIANOCRAFT GALLERY. Angustia, and Scheherazade (Honorable Mention).

  • Galatea Gallery (SOWA, Boston), Unquiet, in conjunction with Newton Open Studios, mixed media, A Fortune in Diamonds/Chunky Boats, Reception

2021

  • honeyjonesstudio Gallery: 3-Woman Show, Scheherazade, Cambridge, MA.

  • Lasell College’s Wedeman Gallery, Newton Art Association Members’ Exhibition, Marian Anderson and the D.A.R. Newton, MA

  • Rockport Art Association & Museum (RAA&M) Experimental Group #16 Then and Now (Chunky Boats/A Fortune in Diamonds)

  • honeyjonesstudio Gallery: September, Regarding Water: the Power of Water to renew, reflect, reconnect

  • Galatea New England Collective XI, Regional Exhibition, JUROR: GRACE RYDER O'MALLEY

  • honeyjonesstudio gallery: Solace and Saudade, 7 paintings, Artist Talk

  • Women in Abstraction: A Sanctuary for Migratory Birds (painting): https://newartcenter.org/women-in-abstraction/#fullgallery

  • Beat Frequency/Bossa Nova/Eta Aquariids, honeyjonesstudio Gallery, (7 paintings)

  • 2021 National Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, Juror: Alice Gray Stites, Museum Director, Chief Curator, 21c Museums

  • Re-Emergence—A New Hope: Juried Show, PIANOCRAFT Gallery, Boston, MA, Newton Art Association

  • NUDES: honeyjonesstudio Gallery; Painting, “ReBirth of a Nation”

2020

  • RED: Cambridge Art Association, “Factory of Evil”: JUROR: Layla Bermeo, the Kristin and Roger Servison Associate Curator of American Paintings/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

  • “Color Light Soul”: 7 paintings: 10/21/2020—11/7/2020 Gallery Invited Exhibition: honeyjonesstudio Gallery Cambridge, MA, Curator: Julie Ayaz

  • “Mary Schein Fall Salon," 2020, Cambridge Art Association, Kathryn Shultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA

  • 2020 Members Prize Show, “Seeking a Certain Grace,” Cambridge Art Association; JUROR: Jessica Roscio, DanforthArt, Framingham, MA.

  • “Broken Beauty,” University Place Gallery, Cambridge Art Association, JUROR: Cathleen Daley

  • “Reclaimed, Recycled, Reimagined,” (continued) 20 Depot Square Gallery, 3rd Floor, Peterborough, NH:. 15 found object assemblages

  • "Different Strokes,” 8 paintings, collages/assemblages Invited Small Group Show, Lasell College Wedeman Gallery, Lois Tarlow and Vladimir Zimakov

  • “You Can’t Teach Art”: John Murray Invitational: Newart Center, Newton, MA, Two Figures

2019

• Depot Square Gallery, Peterborough, NH: 15 found object assemblages

• John Murray Invitational Group: Newart Center, Newton, MA, Painting, Two Figures

• Gallery B, The Mill Contemporary Art, 4 paintings, CURATOR: Sorin Bica

• Mary Schein Fall Salon, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, painting, Immigrant Family

• Invited Small Group Annex Fountain Street Gallery and artist’s talk

• Members’ Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, JUROR: Lisa Crossman, I Listen to My Friend, painting.

• Wedeman Gallery, Lasell College, Newton Art Association: JUROR: Vladimir Zimakov, Assemblage, Man with the Sun in His Heart

* City Hall, Newton, Newton Open Studios: MA, painting, Immigrant Caught in the Network.

• NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS, JUROR: Vladimir Zimakov, Director,  Wedeman Gallery
director, Professor of art, Lasell College, NewTV, Newton, MA: “SPACES” The Places and Spaces of Copicut Woods, painting

2018

• RED, 2018, Cambridge Art Association, JUROR: Dan Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson, Cambridge Art Association’s Kathryn Schultz and University Place Galleries
• Newton Art Association, James King Bonnar Show, Lasell College-Wedeman Art Gallery, Newton, MA, Assemblage: The Man With the Sun in His Heart, JUROR: Julie Bernson

• The Mill Contemporary Art; 3 paintings: “Refugee in Landscape,” “Make America Great Again,” “Immigrant Family,” CURATOR: Sorin Bica

• Arlington Center for the Arts: “Refugee Ship,” I’m New Here: Perspectives on Migration, JUROR: Boriana Kantcheva

• Belmont Gallery, Monster Misunderstood Juried, “Forlorn Man”

• Mary Schein Fall Salon, University Place Gallery, Cambridge, MA

• Newton Art Association: New Members Show, Honorable Mention, “The Other Red Door”); acrylic on canvas. JUDGES, Myra Abelson & Jeanne Gugino

• SOLO EXHIBITION, "The Laws of Chance," Cambridge Health Associates, MA

• Cambridge Art Association, MEMBERS' PRIZE SHOW; "The Other Red Door," JUROR: Joseph Carroll, Cambridge, MA

• NewartCenter: "Repurposed"—3-Person Exhibition & Talk, Wood Collage Bas-Reliefs: "Interpretations of the Physical World"; JUROR: Sarah Montross

• SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY: "SEEING WOMAN": 30 PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ZEKE MAGAZINE'S "Through a Woman's Lens"

http://www.socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Barbara_Trachtenberg/2669: Retrospective on Girls and Women Internationally

https://www.socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Barbara_Trachtenberg/4250: Cuba, from SOLO exhibition, Havana, Cuba, 2015

• Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center Illuminations, 5 works; Curator,  Beverly Therkelsen

2017

• HANGAR / Center of Artistic Research, Lisbon, Portugal

• BLUE, CambridgeArt, JUROR: Vera Ingrid Grant, Hutchins Center for African American Art and Culture, Harvard University

• Summer Selective, 6 large paintings, Newton Open Studios, JUROR: Kathleen Smith Redman

• ConcordArt: Stuart Shils Group Exhibition, Painting

• Summer Selective, Newton Open Studios, JUROR: Kathleen Smith Redman

• The Fifth Annual One, ArtsWorcester, Worcester, MA

• Rockport Art Association, Contributing Members Exhibition, Rockport, MA

• Rockport Art Association, Experimental Group: "Unexpected, No. 4," Painting, JURIED, Rockport, MA

• Invited Small Group Exhibition, 4 Paintings, CURATOR, Katherine Miller, Newbury Court, Concord, MA

• Winter, Cambridge Art Association, Ideas of Home, Photograph "Two Women, Bulgaria"

• Winter, Concord Art Association, Roddy Annual, JUROR: Katherine French, Painting

2016

• Fall, Cambridge Art Association, "Mary Schein Fall Salon," Painting, Cambridge, MA

• Summer Selective, Newton Open Studios, 4 photographs, JUROR, Kathleen Smith Redman

• Spring to Summer: SOLO: Photonarrative, CUBA, "Waiting for Change"— Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

• Cuba Diversidad: A Photographic Journey, Bunker Hill Community College, INVITED Small Group Exhibition & Presentation: JUROR: Laura Montgomery, with Lou Jones

•  Cambridge Art Association, "Unconventional Means," JUROR: Robert Siegelman

• "Circling the Seine," Cambridge Art Association: Mary Schein Fall Salon, Cambridge, MA

• Newton Open Studios, Summer Selective, JUROR: Kathleen Smith Redman

 • Cambridge Art Association, "Hippolyta," Cambridge Art Association, "SELFISH," JUROR:  Catherine Kehoe

• Spring: SOLO PHOTONARRATIVE EXHIBITION: CUBA: Waiting for Change; Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Opening Reception & Poetry Reading by Cuban-American writers

• Cambridge Art Association, "Unconventional Means," JUROR: Robert Siegelman, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, "Embargo"

2015

  • CambridgeArt, Mary Schein Fall Salon, Cambridge, MA

  • Narrative Street Photography: Presentation, Newton Arts Center, Newton, MA

  • FenceArt, Newton, MA, JUROR: Ellen Fisher

  • Rocky Neck Art Colony: Gloucester, MA, Printed, Painted, Folded, Torn: Paperwork, JUROR: Katherine French

  • SOLO Photonarrative Exhibition: CUBA Story and Community :Galeria Teodoro Ramos Blanco, Cerro, Havana, Cuba

2014

  • SOLO Exhibition: Hotel-Restaurant le Flaubert, Villenauxe-la-Grande, Champagne-Ardennes, France

  • Artist Residency: CAMAC Centre d'Art, Marnay-sur-Seine, France; http://www.camac.org/residences-dartistes/artistes-2/2014-2/barbara-trachtenberg/

  • Biennial: Les artistes ouvrent leur porte, Open Studios, Marnay-sur-Seine, Champagne-Ardennes, France, Centre culturel, La Maison du Boulanger, France

  • Papiers collées: ONLINE Berlin: http://blattformer.blogspot.de/search/label/NOW%20B.%20Trachtenberg; CURATOR: Ruprecht Dreher

  • http://www.socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Barbara_Trachtenberg/2669; CURATOR: Glenn Ruga

  • Street Photography of Cambridge & Boston; Griffin Museum of Photography, Small Group, Winchester, MA; CURATOR: Harvey Stein

  • Members’ Show: Male Bather on the Seine, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA

  • Royal Sonesta Hotel ArtBar, 6 CUBA photographs; Cambridge, MA

  • CambridgeArt: Pretty Ugly, Woman and Shadow, Havana; JUROR: Camilo Alvarez,

  • ConcordArt: Photography, Drawings, Mixed Media, Crafts & Graphics; The Street, Havana and Seated Man, Havana

2013

  • Pink Revolution, 69th Annual Members' Juried Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts, JUROR: Kate McNamara

  • SOLO: PHOTOGRAPHS: Trident Bookstore and Cafe, Boston, MA

  • SOLO: PAINTINGS AND MIXED MEDIA: Trident Bookstore and Cafe, Boston, MA

  • Mirrors and Windows: La Farmácia Johnson, Havana, Cuba, Cambridge Art Association, JURORRS Dana Salvo & Dawn Southworth, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

  • Griffin Museum of Photography: Winter Solstice Members' Show, "Newsboys"

  • NewTV Summer Selective, Newton, MA: 5 juried pieces, JUROR, Kathleen Smith, Director of Exhibits at New Art CenterNewton Mayor’s Office Summer Show, “Stay Cool”

  • Invited Group : "Old Structures," CURATOR: Emily Passman

  • Danforth Museum: "Lubavitcher I," Community of Artists: JUROR, Katherine French, Danforth Museum Director

  • YWCA Stand Against Racism, JUROR, Karen Haas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder: "Two Boys"

  • FACE TO FACE: Painting, "Face to Face," JUROR, Arlette Kayafas of Gallery Kayafas

  • Cambridge Art Association: BLUE, "Mother, Muted," Group, JUROR, Joseph Thompson, Director, Mass MoCA

  • SECRETS: Group Show, "In the Kitchen," JUROR, Jane Young of Chase Young Gallery, Boston. Cambridge Art, Cambridge, MA

  • "Brothers, Morocco," Greater Lynn International Photographic Competition

2012

  • RE CYCLE: "Totem to a Marathon" JUROR, Susie Nielsen, Farm Gallery + Project Space, Wellfleet MA, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA

  • Boston Camera Club: Latimer Competition: Third Place, "Souq"

  • Newton Open Studios: New Photographs: Mexico, Morocco

  • Concord Art Association, FRANCES RODDY 13th Open Competition, "Lubavitcher I," JUROR, Jen Mergel, Beal Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

  • Scollay Square Gallery, "Friends: Morocco," "Brothers, Morocco," "Woman Baking Bread, Morocco," Boston City Hall: Art and Poetry

  • Newton Open Studios TOP TEN: JUROR, Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum

2011

  • April, BLUE, Cambridge Art Association

1989

  • PHOTOGRAPHS: The Families of Cuetzálan: Chelsea Public Library

  • Boston Camera Club: Third Prize, Morocco, “Marrakech” color photograph

AWARDS

  • Artist of the Year: Cambridge Art Association, 2025

  • MacDowell Colony Fellowship: http://www.macdowellcolony.org/artists-indexfellows.php

  • Friend to Writers Award: PEN-New England: Prison Writing Program; http://www.pen.org/prison-writing

  • Third Prize: 2022, Piano Craft Gallery, Scheherazade: Telling Fingers

  • Third Place, 2011`, Boston Camera Club, Marrakech, Color Photograph

  • Boston Camera Club: Latimer Competition: Third Place, "Souq"

  • Brothers, Morocco, photograph, Greater Lynn International Photographic Competition

  • PIANOCRAFT GALLERY. Angustia, and Scheherazade (Honorable Mention).

PUBLICATIONS

  • CUBA: Story and Community: With essays by Lic. Magdalena Rivas Rodríguezand Lic. Félix Hernández Ambrosio, Curador y Gallerista, Galería Teodoro Ramos Blanco, Havana

  • CUBA, March, 2014: Hardcover of color photographs

  • Anthology: RE CYCLED, Cambridge Art Association

  • Anthology: SECRETS, Cambridge Art Association

  • YWCA "Stand Against Racism": http://www.bu.edu/prc/StandAgainstRacism/index.html: “Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder"

  • Book: PAIRINGS

  • Book: SEEING, Photographs and poems

  • Book: VILLAGE FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS

  • Shalom Magazine, December, 2013

  • Book: FABRIC FRANCE, hardcover of photographs

  • 2005: “Interview with Richard Lethem,” COMMENTARY in Words and Images, pp. 12-24

  • Dissertation: Immigrant Women’s Strategies for Overcoming Barriers in the Urban US: https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/304162559.html?FMT=ABS

COMMUNITY

Works owned by:

  • WGBH and the Boston Globe in celebrating the second-annual Summer Arts Walk on Newbury Street July, 2015, Robert Klein Gallery, Newbury • Street, Boston, MA, West Roxbury Academy, Boston Public Schools

  • The Art Connection (http://www.theartconnection.org) an organization whose mission is to enrich and empower underserved communities by expanding access to original works of visual art

  • WGBH AUCTION, 2015

  • Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative

  • MassBay Community College

  • Workshop: Big Sister Association; Photos and Poems, Workshop with urban girls and their "big sisters": writing poems from participants' photographs, 2013, Boston, MA

  • Photographer: JEWISH-CAPE VERDEAN SEDER, 2013, Boston, MA

  • Presenter: Photographic Resource Center at Boston University

PRESENTATIONS, TALKS

  • Cuba Diversidad: Panel Discussion., A Photographic Journey, Bunker Hill Community College, Group Exhibition: Curator: Laura Montgomery,  Presentation

  • Photographic Resource Center at Boston University

  • 2013: New England Women in Photography: Simmons College

  • 2011-2012: NewTV GALLERY, Newton, MA: Winners of Juried Newton Open Studios, Group Show, JUROR by Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA

  • 2012, March, Presentation: "Women in Photography Night": Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, with Lisa Kessler http://www.flickr.com/photos/prcboston/sets/72157629270275528/

  • 2011, Fall, Newton Public Library, Preview Show for Winners of Juried Exhibit; JUROR by Katherine French of the Danforth Museum

  • 2011, Fall, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS

  • 2010, Spring, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS

  • Monolog presented by actress at American Anthropological Association, Chicago. Visual Anthropology

COLLECTIONS

  • Paintings and Photographs in Private Collections in New England, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Chicago, North Carolina and Mexico

  • WGBH, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (photograph, Lubavicher, I)

STUDIES

  • Monoprint, Collage, Painting, Drawing: Roz Ablow, Tim Harney, Bonnie Mineo, John Murray, Joanne Mattera

  • Maggie Dietz, Poet, Boston University, http://www.bu.edu/creativewriting/maggie-dietz/

MEMBERSHIPS and degrees

  • Danforth Museum of Art, NewArtCenter, ArtsWorcester, Rockport Art Association and Experimental Group, Griffin Museum of Photography, Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, Newton Open Studios, Boston Camera Club, Cambridge Art Association, Concord Art Association, Newton Art Association

  • Ed.D, Cultural Studies, Boston University

  • M.A, Psychology, Antioch New England

  • M.Ed., Education, Keene State College

  • Phi Beta Delta International Scholar

  • SERVAS International Peace organization, Interviewer

affiliation:

The Mill Contemporary Art Gallery and Studios at The Mill at Saxonville, (Framingham), MA

Fountain Street Artists Annex, Boston

MacDowell Colony Fellow, and Regional Liaison