Vija Celmins Photo © Renee McKee Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Vija Celmins was born in Riga, Latvia in 1938. She immigrated to the United States with her family when she was ten years old, settling in Indiana. She received a BFA from the John Herron Institute in Indianapolis, and later earned her MFA in painting from the University of California, Los Angeles. Celmins worked as an art teacher in Los Angeles, at the Copper Union, New York and the Yale Graduate School in Connecticut. She now mostly lives and works in New York.




1996
American Academy Award of Arts and Letters

1997
Fellowship of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur

2006
Athena Award for Excellence in Painting

2007
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

2006
Centre Pompidou, Paris

2002
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

2001
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel

1997
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Museum für moderne Kunst, Frankfurt
Kunstmuseum Winterthur

1996
Institute of Contemporary Art, London

1995
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris

1994
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

1993
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1992
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

1973
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York