(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – The latest addition to Northern Berkshire’s gallery scene is the Barbara Prey Gallery, devoted to the works of the internationally acclaimed landscape artist and located at 71 Spring Street. A celebrated American painter who has exhibited extensively overseas, Barbara Ernst Prey is a graduate of Williams College and maintains a studio in Williamstown, where she has been exploring a new body of work of the area landscape.

“Barbara is thrilled to return to Williamstown and the surrounding area which has provided inspiration for many years and where she had one of her early shows at Williams College some 35 years ago. We look forward to exhibiting artwork from different periods of her development and engaging with the community,” said gallery manager Natalie Flammia.

As one of the key figures of 21st century landscape painting, Prey was appointed by the President of the United States to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts. Members are chosen for their established record of distinguished service and achievement in the arts. Previous members include noted artists Leonard Bernstein, John Steinbeck, Richard Diebenkorn and Isaac Stern.

Her painting, Lineleader, is currently on exhibit at the National Endowment for the Arts in the office of the Chairman. With work in the White House’s permanent collection, her appointment to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body to the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a long list of important private, public, national and international collections, her place as a significant American artist is secure.  This winter Prey was adjunct faculty at Williams College.

The Heckscher Museum in New York honored Prey with their “Celebrate Achievement Award” for her accomplishments and contributions to American art and culture on a local, national and global level.  Heckscher Museum director Michael Schantz said, “Barbara Ernst Prey [is] one of America’s most gifted watercolorists… Barbara’s flawless technique ranks her among the most important artists who ever painted in the medium.”

Sarah Cash, curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, writes, “Among the foremost artists at work in the United States today, Barbara Ernst Prey has painted powerful, vibrant views of her surroundings for nearly forty years. The artist continues to take the watercolor medium, which has an august role in the history of American art, to innovative places.

Prey was recently honored when NASA commissioned her to paint four paintings for their collection. The x-43, the fastest aircraft in the world, included in the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Museum Exhibit NASA|ART: 50 Years was on exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.  NASA invited her to be the artist spokesperson for the exhibit and she was featured on The CBS Evening News. Her other NASA commissions include: The Columbia Tribute, to commemorate the anniversary of the Columbia tragedy; the International Space Station, which is on exhibit with her painting of the Columbia Tribute at the Kennedy Space Center; and the Shuttle Discovery: Return to Flight. Prey joins an elite group of American artists who have been invited by NASA to document the history of space exploration, including Norman Rockwell and Robert Rauschenberg. Dr. H. Lester Cooke, former National Gallery of Art Curator who guided the NASA Arts Program comments, “future generations will realize that we have not only the scientists and engineers capable of shaping the destiny of our age but artists worthy to keep them company.”

Prey is an artistic ambassador for the United States, chosen to participate since 2004 in the United States Arts in Embassies Program.  At the U.S. Embassy in Paris she was the only living American painter exhibited with prominent American masters Homer, Ryder and Sargent. The U.S. Ambassador to Spain requested a special exhibit of her paintings for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. Her artwork is on exhibit in many U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide including: Prague, Seoul, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, Bogotá, Mexico City, Athens, Cairo and Rangoon. The Arts in Embassies Program presents the works of influential American artists to a broad, international audience. Prey was honored with the Senate’s “Women of Distinction Award”, a tribute to outstanding New York women. She joins previous honorees Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt. She was invited as “one of the top players in today’s American art world” to moderate the panel Women at the Helm of American Art in New York with Museum of Modern Art Curator Laura Hoptman and Guggenheim Curator Nancy Spector.

As one of the leading artists of her generation, her paintings are included in some of the most important public and private collections around the world including The White House, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art Dartmouth College, The Taiwan Museum of Art, New York Historical Society, the Henry Luce Foundation, and The Reader’s Digest Collection. Her work is owned by private collectors including President and Mrs. George W. Bush, Nobel Laureate Dr. and Mrs. James Watson, Ambassador and Mrs. Craig Stapleton, Prince and Princess Johannes Lobkowicz, Orlando Bloom and Tom Hanks. As a spokesperson for American Art, she was invited to lecture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for the Winslow Homer exhibit, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art for the John Singer Sargent exhibit, at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid on American Art and at Dartmouth College. She gave the opening lecture for the All-Ivy Intellectual Interchange Series: Arts in America in New York City.

Prey graduated from Williams College where she studied with Lane Faison and has a master’s degree from Harvard University, where she was able to continue her art history studies.  She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Henry Luce Foundation grant for her work, which enabled her to travel, study and exhibit extensively in Europe and Asia. She is an art blogger for The Huffington Post.

Prey’s artwork has been featured and discussed in numerous books, publications, radio and television programs including The CBS Evening News, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, Newsday, The Boston Globe, CBS Sunday Morning, Larry King Live, PBS, NPR, Paula Zahn Now, CNN News Sunday, AP and Reuters Newswire, The New York Post, The Daily News, The International Art Newspaper, Harvard Magazine, Artforum, ArtNews, Forbes and NBC’s Extra.