Born in the Bronx, having received her degrees from Hunter College, CUNY, Frances Barth has been working and showing her painting in New York and internationally since the 1960's.

While an art student she also studied modern dance, and began performing with Yvonne Rainer at Lincoln Center and the Billy Rose Theater in 1968-9, and with Joan Jonas in dance and video in 1970.

Video: During the last 15 years she has also created two animations, two documentaries, and a short b&w film set in 1947 after the Japanese internment, while remaining focused on her painting.

Her most recent animation, "Jonnie in the Lake" won Best Animated Short in November 2016 at the New York Short Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the Sunrise Film Festival in Nova Scotia. It now has Spanish subtitles as well and has shown in Venezuela, Uruguay and Ecuador.

The animation "End of the Day, End of the Day" completed in 2007 was shown at the Atlanta Festival of the Moving Image in the Marcia Wood Gallery, and in New York at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in 2010.

Her video documentary/portrait on the painter Regina Bogat, "Regina B" premiered at the New Renaissance Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2018, and was nominated for Best International Short Documentary. It was an official selection at The New York Short Film Festival in 2018 and it will premiere in Canada September 2019. An earlier version was shown at The Marfa International Film Festial in 2014.

Six of Frances' paintings were in the 2015 Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Grimani in "Frontiers Reimagined," and her most recent solo painting show was at Silas Von Morisse gallery NY in 2017-18.

Last year she published her first graphic novel "Ginger Smith and Billy Gee" with settings derived from her paintings.

Her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, an Adolphe and Esther Gottlieb Individual Support Grant, two American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase awards, the Anonymous Was a Woman grant and a Pollock-Krasner grant.

She is Director Emeritus of the Mt.Royal School of Art, The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

Frances is married to the actor/director Ron Nakahara.

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