REPRESENTING JOHN SONSINI

“What I want is for the portrait to be like a thumbprint on a water glass—a broad reminder that someone has been there.” — John Sonsini

Over the course of four decades, Los Angeles based painter John Sonsini has established himself as one of the forefront contemporary American portraitists. Tying his entire oeuvre together is a profound sense of empathy—both radiating from the paintings themselves and in how Sonsini paints them. His works can be loosely defined into three categories: portraits of his long-time partner Gabriel, portraits of day-workers and street entertainers, and portraits of belongings. Regardless of composition, each of Sonsini’s works are a detailed recording of the relationship between sitter and painter. His subjects meet our eye, prompting us to fill in the narrative of the person looking back at us, seeing likeness in the other.

John Sonsini (b. 1950, Rome, NY) received his Bachelor of Arts from the California State University, Northridge in Northridge, CA.

He has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Vielmetter Los Angeles, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York; Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara; Long Beach Museum of Art, CA; Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan.

Sonsini has been included in group exhibitions at numerous institutions including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.

His work may be found in the collections of  The Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Fundación AMMA, Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and elsewhere.

Sonsini lives and works in Los Angeles and Querétaro, Mexico.