Barbara Grossman’s paintings are about figures in interiors—women—reading, singing, playing the piano or dancing. They are completely invented. Her color is characteristically bright and luminous. Her figures create their own space and are defined by it. The space of the painting folds, unbends and presses the experience of seeing, so that seeing happens in a new way. The paintings are oil on linen. The oil pastels are of the same subject matter, however, they are not studies for the paintings, but entities themselves.

Lawrence Campbell, in a review of Grossman’s work in Art in America wrote, “. . . she invites the sound of music and the intimate poetry of the scene . . . for all is color and light.”