Joel Janowitz has exhibited widely, with over thirty solo exhibitions. His work can be found in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
Janowitz is the 2016 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Painting, and 2013 recipient of a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.In 2008 Janowitz received his third individual Artist’s Fellowship from the state of Massachusetts. Earlier in his career he twice received artist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Janowitz’s teaching includes Wellesley College (2003–2010), Massachusetts College of Art/Fine Arts Work Center Low-Residency MFA program (2006–2010), and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1994–2000).Joel Janowitz received his B.A. from Brandeis University (1967) where he studied painting with Philip Guston and drawing with Michael Mazur. He received an M.F.A. in painting from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1969).
Janowitz' book Island was published in 2015 and shows work inspired by his summer trips to Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, over a period of 20 years.
Joel and his wife, Anne Lilly, an accomplished sculptor, live and maintain studios in Cambridge, MA.