Will Barnet studied painting with Philip Leslie Hale at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and print-making with Charles Locke at the Art Students League, New York. The first of his many one-man exhibitions occurred in 1938.
A regular participant in Academy annual exhibitions, he has been awarded the Altman Prize, 1977, Proctor Prize, 1984, and Cook Prize, 1986. Among other awards are those from the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Biennial; the Ford Foundation; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has been a member of the faculties of the Art Students League, the Cooper Union, the New School for Social Research, all in New York; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; the University of Minnesota, Duluth; Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
Barnet is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and of many artists' organizations. He served as recording secretary of the National Academy from 1985 to 1989, and was elected vice president in 1989. He resides in New York.
