Beforehand
Jake Berthot, American, 1939 - 2015
1995
Oil on gessoed paper mounted on aluminum
Sheet: 21 1/4 in. (53.9 cm)
Sheet: 17 in. (43.2 cm)
Frame: 22 11/16 × 18 7/16 in. (57.7 × 46.9 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the William S. Rubin Fund, the Claire and Richard P. Morse 1953 Fund, and the Hood Museum of Art Acquisitions Fund
© Jake Berthot
P.996.7
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
On view
Label
[I am trying to] paint silence before it completely disappears. -- Jake Berthot
Painted during Jake Berthot’s Dartmouth residency in the fall of 1995, Beforehand uses a strong monochromatic red to explore formal problems such as the relationship between surface and shape. His thickly layered abstractions reveal an interest in the transcendent and spiritual possibilities of purely abstract painting. Similar themes arise in the work of Mark Rothko, an artist who greatly influenced the self-taught Berthot and whose work is on view nearby. The scarred ridges of scraped-away pigment on the painting here document Berthot’s process and leave a surface replete with shadowy implications.
From the 2025 exhibition Always Already: Abstraction in the United States, curated by John Stomberg, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961 Director; Jami Powell, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art; and Amelia Kahl, Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programing
Course History
WRIT 5, Expository Writing, William Craig, Winter 2014
SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Fall 2014
SART 31, SART 72, Painting II, Painting III, Jennifer Caine, Fall 2014
SART 31, Painting II, Enrico Riley, Winter 2015
SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Spring 2015
SART 31, 72, Painting II, III, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2019
SART 76, Senior Seminar I, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2019
SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/Painting III, Colleen Randall, Fall 2019
SART 25.01, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Winter 2020
SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Colleen Randall, Spring 2022
Exhibition History
Always Already: Abstraction in the United States, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 26,2025.
In Residence: Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Harrington Gallery, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-July 6, 2014.
Jake Berthot, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Jaffe Friede and Strauss Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26-October 29, 1995.
Jake Berthot, Nielson Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, April 18-May 6, 1995, no. 11.
Publication History
Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.79, no.56.
Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 92 , no. 81
Provenance
Nielson Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 1996.
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