Julie Heffernan is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. She received her MFA in painting and printmaking at Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1985, and her BFA from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1981. Heffernan has been exhibiting her paintings actively throughout the United States since 1988 when she had her first solo exhibition at Littlejohn Contemporary Gallery in New York City. In 2008-2009 she will be having solo exhibitions at the Megumi Ogita Gallery in Tokyo, Japan; Lux Art Institute in Encinitas, CA; the Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; and the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, CA. Heffernan shows regularly with PPOW Gallery in New York City and the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, CA. Her solo exhibition entitled “Booty” was on display in October 2007 at the PPOW Gallery. In 2007, she also participated in a number of group exhibitions including “Old School” at Hauser and Wirth in London and New York City; “Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life” at the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, NY; and “More is More; Maximalist Tendencies in Recent American Painting” at the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in Talahassee, FL. In 2006, she was included in the exhibition “New Old Masters,” curated by Donald Kuspit at the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland.

In 2005-2006, Heffernan’s work was the focus of a traveling museum exhibition at the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro, NC; the Columbia Museum in Columbia, SC; and the Albany Art Museum in Albany, NY. She also had solo exhibitions at PPOW Gallery in New York City and Robert Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan; and participated in group shows at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, GA; the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; the Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, CA; and Tucson Art Museum in Tucson, AZ. In 2004 she had solo exhibitions at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI, as well as Paul Kopeikin Gallery in LA, CA and Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago. She was also invited to participate in numerous group shows including “Enchantment” at Wave Hill in New York, NY; “About Painting” at the Tang Musem at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; the “179th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art” at the National Academy Museum in New York City and “Garden of Earthly Delights” at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA. In 2003 she had solo exhibitions at PPOW Gallery and Littlejohn Contemporary in NYC and at the Herter Gallery at UMass in Amherst. Over the years Heffernan has participated in numerous group shows, including “The New VMFA: Collecting for the Future” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, “Women and Self-Representation in Contemporary Art” at the Palmer Museum of the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA in 2003; the “Invitational Exhibition” at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City in 2002; and “The Figure: Another Side of Modernism,” at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at the Snug Harbor Art Center on Staten Island in 2000.

Heffernan has received a number of grants and fellowships over the years including a Thomas R. Proctor Prize from the National Academy Museum in New York City, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (NYFA), a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and a Fulbright-Hayes Grant to West Berlin.

Heffernan’s work has been published and reviewed in major newspapers and periodicals including: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Observer, The New York Sun, Artforum, Art in America, Art News, Flash Art, Harpers, The Chicago Tribune and Art and Auction.

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