Born in Flint, Michigan (1941) John Torreano attended Flint Junior College where he received his AA in 1961. He received his BFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1963), and his MFA from Ohio State University (1967) where he studied perception as it relates to painting with Hoyt L. Sherman and Robert King.

He has lived and worked in New York City since moving there in 1968. Nationally and internationally recognized, his work has been exhibited at many important museums and galleries. They include, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., and the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Arts. He is the recipient of a Nancy Graves Foundation Grant for Visual Artists, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and individual grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council of the Arts. Some of the galleries that currently represent his work are: Feature Inc. in NYC, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale MI, and the Jean Albano Gallery in Chicago IL.
 
In addition to being an artist, Mr. Torreano is a Professor at NYU where he has been teaching since 1992, and is presently Program Director of their MFA in Studio Art. He is also an author with the release of his new book, Drawing by Seeing, Abrams 2007. In addition to object making, Mr.Torreano has given many comedic performances, which also address contemporary culture/art.

For the past 40 years John Torreano has challenged such modernist dogma as essentialism (i.e., the flatness of painting) or the idea of art as a "container” [of ideas], with a concept of meaning based on a "multiplicity of points-of-view" or as he would say; "There are many stars.  There are many gods."

 Throughout his career John Torreano has maintained a remarkably independent stance in the art world. Although his work has commented on other stylistic tendencies, he has successfully managed to circumvent the fleeting trends and "isms" of recent decades, focusing instead on his own uncompromisingly unique vision.

For several decades he has challenged such modernist’s dogma as essentialism or the idea of art as “container” with a concept of meaning determined by a multiplicity of points of view or as he would say "...There are many stars, there are many gods". In his effort to expand these boundaries he has enlisted a wide variety of unconventional materials and means, i.e., acrylic gems, wood spheres, Krylon paint, polyhedrals, snub nose moldings etc., all in an effort to reconstruct a formalist vocabulary. Armed with these tools, a great, wit, and a physical sensitivity to color and material, his work confronts the viewer with many of the oxymoronic binaries of contemporary art and culture.

Internationally known, his achievements have been recognized with many grants including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts. Torreano’s work is included in the collections of: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC; Chase Manhattan Bank, NY; Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN; The Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI; The Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI; La Foret Museum, Japan; Foundation Villa Rufolo, Italy; Albright Knox Gallery, NY; Dayton Art Institute, OH; Eli Broad Foundation, CA; Norton Gallery of Art, FL; Los Angeles County Museum, CA; Honolulu Museum of Contemporary Art, HI; Denver Art Museum, CO; Fredrick Weisman Collection, CA; Contemporary Arts Museum, TX; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.