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Salem, Oregon, USA
Barnett (503) 467-6602 Solomon (503) 880-1300
The Piedmont Book Company Gallery
The Piedmont Book Company Gallery
In 1978 Frank Barnett rented a small storefront adjacent to his bookstore and opened his first gallery. Inflation was roaring and customers began to snatch up artwork as a hedge against the rising prices of nearly everything. When his accountants told him that his profits were higher per square foot in the gallery than in his bookstore, Frank decided to open up a much larger gallery on Piedmont Avenue with an impressive inventory of his artistic heroes.
Bearden’s collage “The Family”
Parsons-Barnett Gallery
In 1979, Frank Barnett and his partner, Joan Parsons, renovated a large space up the street from the Piedmont Book Company and totally gutted it, creating a modern gallery space that opened with the works of photographers Imogen Cunningham, Lucien Clergue and Eliot Porter. Other major artists whose work was featured there include Leonard Baskin, Will Barnet, Jean-Michel Folon, Fritz Scholder, Hundertwasser, Erte, Tom Wesselmann, and Hispanic artists from the Ernest de Soto workshop. In addition to this A-list of artists, collagist Romare Bearden had his first West Coast exhibit at Parsons-Barnett Gallery – Oakland's best attended art exhibit at that time.
Museum of New Mexico Foundation
The Museums of New Mexico
The museums of New Mexico include the Museum of Fine Arts, the Palace of the Governors, the Museum of International Folk Art and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Frank Barnett's advertising agency created a successful national retail catalogue program that included product selection from Native Americans and Hispanic artists, design and photo direction, and established the inventory, fulfillment and customer service operations. In addition, Frank created a statewide direct mail membership drive and a national advertising campaign that achieved an increase in membership of 10% and built traffic in the museum's five retail stores. Both the catalogue and the national advertising campaign were recipients of Addy Awards from the Santa Fe Ad Club.
food and specialty beverages
Barnett's Marketing Campaign for Food & Beverages
In addition to his portrait photography, Frank specializes in food and speciality beverage photography. His clients have included the Oregon Wine Board, the Oregon and Washington Restaurant Associations, Western Culinary Institute and vineyards that included, the Eyrie Vineyards, Bethel Heights Vineyard, Van Duzer Vineyards and Willamette Valley Vineyards.
Bulls Ain’t Supposed to be Rode
Text and Photography by Frank Barnett
For three years Frank Barnett photographed rodeos from the center of arenas – where the stomping, dust churning, bone crushing power of 2,000 pound snorting Brahman bulls takes place. As a Visual Anthropologist, his documentary photography took him from the famous Pendleton Round-up to the infamous Angola Prison Rodeo at the Louisiana State Penitentiary where he captured dramatic images of a theatre of violence that began with the Glory Riders, their banners fluttering with biblical sound-bites – Word of God, King of Kings, and Army of the Lord. There he discovered a pageant that was more a gladiatorial event than an exercise in Christian redemption.
fine art tapestries
Additional Information
About Pendleton® Woolen Mills
Few company names inspire as much confidence and pride as Pendleton® Woolen Mills. For six generations, the Bishop family has been creating Indian blankets, robes and shawls that are highly prized by much of our Native American population. In fact, they are viewed by many of America’s indigenous people as “sacred objects.” Serious art collectors and dealers will want to include these extremely limited editions in their collections.
About the Jacquard Loom
In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard mechanical loom that simplified the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns. Controlled by punch card, each punched hole corresponds to a Bolus hook which can be either up or down. The loom’s harness that carries and guides the warp thread will either lie above or below the weft, depending on the card’s instructions. The threading of a Jacquard loom is so labor intensive that many looms are threaded only once. Even small looms with only a few thousand warp ends can take days to re-thread. Therefore, creating Barnett’s very small edition tapestries represents a major artistic achievement. See the provenance information below.