Adam Cvijanovic (b. 1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts) is a New York City–based painter whose independently developed practice is distinguished by ambitious scale, technical precision, and a deep engagement with the history of American painting.
While he often works in oil, Cvijanovic is best known for his large-scale paintings on Tyvek—a durable, lightweight material that allows for easy installation and removal. This medium enables him to create expansive, site-specific works that integrate seamlessly into architectural spaces. For more than four decades, he has explored the genre of history painting, depicting real and imagined landscapes that reflect the intersections of place, people, and politics within American cultural narratives.
Public commissions have become a defining element of Cvijanovic’s practice. Notable projects include What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding (2005), a twelve-panel mural depicting nineteenth-century and present-day immigrants arriving in New York City, slated for dedication at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in September 2025. At twenty-one feet high, it is the largest commissioned artwork in the cathedral’s 146-year history and the first since the installation of its monumental bronze doors in 1949. Other commissions include 10,000 Feet (2013), a panoramic depiction of the Indiana countryside for the Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis; Thunderheads (2017), a four-panel oil painting for Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; City Tree (2020), a monumental tile mosaic for a Brooklyn public school; and a vast mural cycle for the Bean Federal Center in Indianapolis (2022), comprising 164 individual Tyvek murals covering more than 7,000 square feet and depicting American battlefields from the colonial era to the present.
Cvijanovic’s work resonates with the legacy of the Hudson River School. Of Thomas Cole, he writes: “[His] paintings are a fascinating and curiously American hybrid of observational realism, romantic interpretation, ethical narrative, Christian allegory, nostalgic sentimentality, and futurist fantasy.” Engaging deeply with this lineage, Cvijanovic reinterprets the landscape and narrative tradition for contemporary audiences.
His solo institutional exhibitions include Hammer Projects at the UCLA Hammer Museum (2005); Rolling Panorama Number 1 at Moot Gallery, Hong Kong (2013); and American Montage (2015), a ten-year survey at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Selected group and two-person exhibitions include Adam Cvijanovic and Peter Garfield: Unhinged (2007) at MASS MoCA; Prospect.1 New Orleans Biennial (2008); Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes (2008), organized by the Walker Art Center and presented at the Carnegie Museum of Art and Tate Liverpool during the Liverpool Biennial; the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012); Beyond Earth at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (2014); and Weird Science (2015) at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.
His work is represented in the collections of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Atlanta; the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; the Wieland Collection, Atlanta; and numerous private collections.