Will Barnet, a leading American painter and printmaker, is known for his distinctive style and meditative works. With his series Seasons of Life now on view at the Museum, get to know Barnet and the stories behind his work with Bill Meek, Director Emeritus of the Harmon-Meek Gallery and a close friend of the artist.
In conversation with Dr. Catherine Walworth, AMFA’s Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr., Curator of Drawings, Meek shares insights into Barnet’s life and work, drawing on a decades-long relationship with the artist.
Together, they reflect on Barnet’s evolving practice and how he moved between abstraction and representation while continually returning to themes of family and time.
Will Barnet: Seasons of Life is supported in part by Jackye and Curtis Finch Jr.
The Museum extends its deepest gratitude to Jackye and Curtis Finch for their commitment to the growth of the AMFA Foundation Collection, and for their ongoing role in supporting the acquisition of works by Will Barnet.
This exhibition is organized by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.
ARTWORK: Will Barnet (Beverly, Massachusetts, 1911 – 2012, New York, New York), Silent Seasons, Autumn (detail), 1969, lithograph on paper, 29 3/4 x 22 in., Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Collection: Purchase, Tabriz Fund and Museum Purchase Plan of the NEA. 1971.009.011.1.
William Meek has over 50 years of experience as a fine art dealer. He is highly regarded for his knowledge of American art and has endeavored to promote artists and their reputations among museums, artist biographers, and academics.
In 1972, Meek joined Foster Harmon as assistant director of the Harmon Gallery, then purchased the gallery in 1978. In 1982, the gallery name changed to Harmon-Meek Gallery. Meek was named Director Emeritus of the gallery in 2015.
Meek earned a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University and was the first art dealer awarded the New York Artists’ Equity Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Visual Arts in 1999. He has also been awarded the Naples Guide Fine Arts Award in 1998; Gulfshore Life Men and Women of the Year in 2003; United Arts Council Stars in the Arts in 2006; and the Service to the Arts Award from the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in 2012.
Today, his primary focus with the gallery is working with art museums, academic institutions, and artist biographers. He has curated nearly 300 museum exhibitions that have been loaned to art museums across the nation.
Dr. Walworth joined the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in 2022. She is a specialist in modern art whose research blends social and political history, material culture, fashion, early film, and dance. Walworth has brought her interests to bear by organizing AMFA’s exhibition Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina, which embarks on its national tour in 2026, and editing its accompanying catalog featuring new research and original scholarship on each artist.
Walworth’s other AMFA exhibitions include Path to Abstraction: Picasso, Braque, and Cubism’s Impact on Modern Art (2023-2024), Risa Hricovsky: Then is Now (2023-2024), Tricia Wright: The Naturalist (2024), and Kwame Brathwaite: The 1970s (2025). In addition to her curating, Walworth has stewarded new acquisitions for the AMFA Foundation Collection by artists such as Perle Fine and Sudarshan Shetty.
Prior to AMFA, Walworth served as curator at the Columbia Museum of Art, where she organized modern and contemporary exhibitions, including Renee Cox: SoulCulture (2017-2018), Jackson Pollock: Mural (2018–2019), and The Ironic Curtain: Art from the Soviet Underground (2021).
She began her career at the Seattle Art Museum, and has held curatorial positions supporting traveling exhibition and catalogue projects, including Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk at Carnegie Museum of Art (2015); Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008); and High Drama: Eugene Berman and the Legacy of the Melancholic Sublime (McNay Art Museum, 2004).
She received a doctorate in art history from The Ohio State University, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Washington, and a bachelor’s degree in Art, History, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies from Cornell College. Her book Soviet Salvage: Imperial Debris, Revolutionary Reuse, and Russian Constructivism (Penn State University Press, 2017) was short-listed for a First Book Prize by the Modernist Studies Association in 2018. She also co-authored (with Dr. Susan Felleman) a chapter examining fashion, art, and objects in the 1939 MGM film Ninotchka in New Approaches to Ernst Lubitsch: A Light Touch (Amsterdam University Press, 2024).
William Meek has over 50 years of experience as a fine art dealer. He is highly regarded for his knowledge of American art and has endeavored to promote artists and their reputations among museums, artist biographers, and academics.
Dr. Walworth joined the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in 2022. She is a specialist in modern art whose research blends social and political history, material culture, fashion, early film, and dance. Walworth has brought her interests to bear by organizing AMFA’s exhibition Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina, which embarks on its national tour in 2026, and editing its accompanying catalog featuring new research and original scholarship on each artist.
