Frederick Barthelme first worked as a painter and concept artist in Texas in the late 1960s. His work was presented in a number of exhibitions in Houston at the Louisiana Gallery, the Katheryn Swenson Gallery, Kiko Gallery, and in exhibits at the University of Houston, Rice University, the Jewish Community Center, the Oklahoma Art Center, and in numerous regional exhibitions. After moving to New York in 1967, he was involved with the then-fledgling concept art movement, appearing in exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Normal Art, Seattle Art Museum, UBC Gallery Vancouver, CAYC Buenos Aires, the New York Cultural Center, Oberlin College, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Texas Gallery, and other museums and galleries in the U.S. and elsewhere. His work was included in Seth Siegelaub’s early printed exhibitions, in the special “concept” issue of Studio International, in Ursula Meyer’s Conceptual Art, in Lucy Lippard’s curated exhibits and in many of the seminal publications of the movement including Lippard’s The Dematerialization of the Art Object, Donald Karshan’s exhibition catalog Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects, and other books and monographs on the concept art movement.