James Yarosh Associates Announces Miriam Beerman in The Met’s Costume Art
“I have spent most of my life creating images that are responses to the brutality of our time. I am reminded constantly of the world’s injustice. It weighs upon my mind and body. Therefore, I seek the beauty and the vigor of the paint and the poetry that inspires the act of painting.”
— Miriam Beerman
James Yarosh Associates is pleased to announce the inclusion of an important work by Miriam Beerman (1923–2022) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s forthcoming Costume Art exhibition, opening in conjunction with this year’s Met Gala. The work has been part of The Met’s permanent collection since 1993.
Miriam Beerman was a humanist expressionist whose work bore witness to the profound human struggles of the 20th century. Beerman’s globally resonant works give voice and witness to persecution with a fearless strength. Her created worlds spotlight the horrors perpetrated by men, demonstrate a special sensitivity to the natural world, and call for humans to acknowledge their responsibility to all living things. As a gifted colorist, her work connects on an almost primal level.
Her legacy extends across more than 70 museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection, The National Gallery of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Beerman’s chronology begins in 1923 and reaches into the 1940s, when she was working in New York’s downtown 8th Street milieu and was photographed by Berenice Abbott in Young Artist in her Greenwich Village studio before leaving for Paris for two consecutive Fulbright awards. In 1971, she became one of the first women to have a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and in 1977 she was included in a two-person exhibition with Alice Neel at Graham Gallery on Madison Avenue.
Her exhibition history continued with The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s at The New Museum in 1990, where she was shown alongside artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leon Golub, Guerrilla Girls, and Nancy Spero, among many others. In 1991, at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, Alison G. Weld wrote: “Beerman’s paintings are containers of memory—historic, monumental and personal. Beerman is a painter whose works throughout her life have addressed issues of persecution. I believe her painting indicates she is a soulmate of Soutine as well as Goya, Van Gogh and Francis Bacon. No artist dies completely.”
In 2015, the 50‑minute artist documentary Miriam Beerman: Expressing the Chaos added another layer to the public record of her career. The film currently streams on Amazon Prime and YouTube.
James Yarosh Associates began representing Miriam Beerman in 2021 with Rediscover, a retrospective presentation of the artist’s work. That exhibition launched a renewed conversation around Beerman’s practice and was followed by the gallery’s later presentation of Miriam Beerman (1923–2022) Nothing Has Changed, which traveled to Monmouth University in 2022 as a guest‑curated exhibition. The gallery’s subsequent presentation, Her Story: Revisiting Women Artists of the 20th Century, including its Art on Paper component by means of the NYC art fair, extended that conversation and brought Beerman’s work before collectors, curators, and international galleries of interest.
Recent institutional attention has continued to renew interest in Beerman’s work in Washington, D.C., including the 2023 exhibition of New Acquisitions at the National Portrait Gallery and the 2024 exhibition The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy at the National Gallery of Art, where her paintings were presented within a broader historical conversation.
The inclusion of Beerman’s work in Costume Art at The Met underscores the enduring relevance of an artist whose paintings remain urgent, humane, and historically resonant.
MIRIAM BEERMAN'S ART AS FEATURED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE: A FASHION REVOLUTION AT THE MET
About Costume Art
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART COSTUME ART PRESS RELEASECurated by Andrew Bolton, The Costume Institute’s spring 2026 exhibition, Costume Art, explores depictions of the dressed body across The Met’s collection, pairing garments with artworks to reveal the relationship between clothing, the body, and artistic representation. The exhibition will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue from May 10, 2026, through January 10, 2027.
About James Yarosh Associates
James Yarosh Associates Fine Art Gallery
For three decades, James Yarosh has united art and interior design through thoughtful curation and an artist’s eye for storytelling, scale, and emotion. Working with collectors and design clients throughout New York, New Jersey, and beyond, Yarosh brings a layered approach that balances structure and spirit — creating environments where art, architecture, and humanity connect. A world traveler and lifelong student of museums and studio craft, he draws inspiration from art that bears witness to its time and reminds us how beauty, when purposefully lived with, can shape and deepen everyday life.
Established in 1996 and located in Holmdel, New Jersey, just one hour outside Manhattan, the James Yarosh Associates Fine Art Gallery continues its mission to represent fine art of merit and to present collections that inspire meaningful conversation between art and living. Designed to feel like an artist’s home, the gallery remains dedicated to advocating for creativity, cultural dialogue, and the unparalleled benefits of living with art.
MIRIAM BEERMAN, "Young Painter in her Greenwich Village studio", 1947, gelatin silver print - Berenice Abbott
MIRIAM BEERMAN, Untitled, 1969, 67in x 54in, oil on canvas
JAMES YAROSH ASSOCIATES FINE ART AND INTERIOR DESIGN GALLERY SALON CONVERSATIONS – A VIDEO RECORDING
This video documents a recent evening of conversation as part of a gallery salon event with a special focus on three artists: Miriam Beerman, Robert Melee and Sheba Sharrow. Thank you to my fellow speakers, Heather Barone (Mentee and former assistant to artist Miriam Beerman), Robert Melee (Artist), Mayda Sharrow (Trustee of the estate of Sheba Sharrow and the artist's daughter),and client/art collector guests who joined us as we shared stories, ideas of gallery curation, backgrounds on the artists and insights on the artworks featured in our 2023 exhibit.
VIDEO RECORDING: FINE ART CONVERSATIONS/ FIVE ARTISTS | RECEPTION CONVERSATION LINK
50 MINUTE ARTIST DOCUMENTARY - MIRIAM BEERMAN: EXPRESSING THE CHAOS - STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME AND YOUTUBE
Espresso Media Entertainment:
Miriam Beerman is a survivor. In her more than 60 years as a groundbreaking artist, she has overcome personal tragedy to inspire friends, family, peers, patrons, and students about how to remain defiant, creative and strong. Miriam has struggled with her artistic demons to create haunting images that evoke the suffering of generations of victims. At 90 years old, Miriam now lives in a residence home near her family in Washington, D.C. Her memory is not what it once was, yet she is still generating compelling and forceful art. It’s one of the only things she is sure of. The film is a memorable profile of an artist who has elevated her empathy for the plight of the world’s castoffs into powerful portrayals of dignity.
Although Beerman maintains the gestural brushstrokes of the abstract expressionists, her work focuses on bestial characters who convey the intense emotion found in her images. Her work includes automatic gestures, vivid colours, and stippled textures that help evoke the feeling of devastation. Some of her themes include biblical plagues, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and nuclear threat.
Beerman has received numerous grants and awards throughout her career. They include a CAPS grant from New York State Council on the Arts (1971), the Childe Hassam purchase award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1977), the Camargo Foundation Award (1980), a distinguished artist grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (1987), and a 40-year retrospective of her work, held at the State Museum of New Jersey in Trenton (1991).
She was the first woman to ever have a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and has since had 31 solo exhibitions of her work. Her work has been exhibited globally, including at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY and at the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey. Her work is in the collection of The Newark Museum of Art and her work now resides in over 60 museums.