Katherine Bradford (born 1942), née Houston,[1] is an American artist based in New York City, known for figurative paintings, particularly of swimmers, that critics describe as simultaneously representational, abstract and metaphorical.

[34][35][36][37] In the 2000s, Bradford has exhibited at the CANADA, Sperone Westwater and Pace galleries in New York,[38] the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth,[12] Galerie Haverkampf (Berlin),[39] Campoli Presti,[11] Kaufman Repetto (Milan),[40] and the New Orleans Biennial (Prospect.4, 2017),[41] among others.

[4] Bradford's early, modestly scaled paintings were largely abstract, employing irregular grids and rows of pictographic dots, spirals and crude letterforms set against vaporous surfaces akin to the meditative work of Mark Rothko.

"[49] In her late 1990s work, Bradford moved closer to iconographic representation, depicting box forms and figures with bold, heavy lines and a comedic or darkly humorous tone.

[50][51][52] Bradford received wider attention with work in the 2000s centered on marine imagery: ethereal ocean liners, sailboats, sea battles, and other-worldly aliens or vulnerable figures that suggested spiritual or intellectual illumination emerging out of darkness (e.g., Lake Sisters, 2004, Traveler, 2004 and Hydra Head, 2006).

[2][53][54][55] Critics characterize these paintings as both mysterious and direct, with simple, ambiguously scaled and combined elements, fluid sea-sky realms, and surfaces of abraded brushstrokes, dabs and scumbling that evoke rather define form.

[52][5][56][28] James Kalm describes them as combining "New England romantic realism with transparent fields of zippy new age color and subversive figuration," unified by unfussy, direct brushwork.

[58][30][44] Robert Berlind characterized their style as "at once offhand and emblematic"; David Cohen wrote that Superman Responds (2011) conveys "a convincing if gender-bent voluptuousness" in a few carefree-seeming dabs with "disconcerting observational acumen" and anatomical precision.

[44][4] Writers differentiate the Superman paintings from Pop, cartoon or ironic work in both appearance and attitude, noting their qualities of warmth, vulnerability, reverie and metaphorical openness.

[67][6][64][63] Critics such as Lilly Wei identify Bradford's "Friends and Strangers" (2018), "Legs and Stripes" (2019) and "Mother Paintings" (2021) exhibitions as departures in terms of palette, process and collective themes, such as race, sexuality, gender and identity.

[73][77][76] Her figures remained ambiguous—somewhat crudely drawn in contour lines against monochromatic Rothko-like grounds—but dominate their frames more, connecting through spare gestures and contact that suggested lifetimes of affection and a heroic sense of care (e.g., Fever, Motherhood, and Mother's Lap).