Betty Tompkins

Betty Tompkins
Born	1945 (age 71–72) Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Education	Syracuse University Central Washington State College
Known for	Painting
Movement	Photorealism, Feminist art, Contemporary art

Betty Tompkins (born 1945) is an American artist. Tompkins is a painter whose works revolve, almost exclusively, around photorealistic, close-up imagery of both heterosexual and homosexual intimate acts. She creates large-scale, monochromatic canvases and works on paper of singular or multiple figures engaged in sexual acts, executed with successive layers of spray painting over pre-drawings formed by text. Alongside artists such as Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, Valie Export, Joan Semmel, Lynda Benglis and Judy Chicago, Tompkins has been re-assessed as a pioneer of Feminist art. Tompkins is listed in The Brooklyn Museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art's Feminist Art Base. Her first painting, completed in 1969, is held in the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France.

Tompkins was born in 1945 in Washington, D.C.. She grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and received her BFA from Syracuse University. She took a teaching job at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, Washington shortly after marrying her first husband, who was one of her instructors. She completed her graduate degree there, traveling between Washington state and New York City. She is currently represented by P.P.O.W Gallery in New York, Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels, and Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles and Palm Beach, Florida.