Anton Kern Gallery
Sep 25 - Sep 27, 2026
Anton Kern Gallery will present work by David Byrd in a solo presentation at Independent 20th Century. David Byrd (b. 1926, Springfield, IL; d. 2013, Oxford, NY) was a highly productive yet reclusive artist.
After serving in the army during World War II, Byrd briefly studied at the Dauphin School of Art in Philadelphia through the G. I. Bill, and then at the Ozenfant School of Fine Arts in New York. In the 1950s, he worked odd jobs across New York State, including as a deliveryman, janitor, and movie house usher, which inspired his genre-scene paintings. Starting in 1958, he worked as an orderly in the psychiatric ward at the Veterans Administration Medical Hospital in Montrose, New York, for 30 years.
He simultaneously developed an expansive body of paintings about his patients, routines, and the surrounding landscape. Upon retirement, he devoted himself fully to his art; however, did not publicly exhibit it until a few months before his death.
Since taking on Byrd’s Estate in 2019, Anton Kern Gallery has held four solo exhibitions in New York (2019, 2021, 2024, 2025), curated presentations at Art Basel in Switzerland (2023) and Miami Beach (2019), and published the artist’s 216 page manuscript, which is the codex for understanding his oeuvre of paintings, drawings, and assemblage sculptures. In 2025, the gallery and the David Byrd Estate published the artist’s online catalogue raisonné. They have also commissioned scholarly texts in order to broaden awareness of the artist and contextualize his work within 20th Century art history. Byrd’s legacy continues to be fostered through collaborations with international curators and institutions.
IMAGES
David Byrd
People at Bar (P53)
, 1960
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Food Tray Patient
, 1976
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
District Attorney
, 1975
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Laundromat Scene
, 2011
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Tortured Woman
, n.d.
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Time Keeps On Running
, 2013
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Sculpture/assemblage 003 (Centaur)
, 1993
Anton Kern Gallery
David Byrd
Between Rounds
, 1957
