Julie Heffernan (born 1956 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American painter whose work has been described by the writer Rebecca Solnit as "a new kind of history painting." Her imaginative landscapes feature such elements as exploding cities, castoff gods and garbage, and falling torrents of animals, meteors and gemstones. David Cohen, art critic of The New York Sun, says of Heffernan's art at a 2007 exhibition: "These paintings are a hybrid of genres and styles, mixing allegory, portraiture, history painting, and still life, while in title they are all presented as self portraits." Heffernan was raised in Northern California and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She received a B.F.A., at the University of California, Santa Cruz and, in 1985, an M.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale School of Art. Heffernan is a Professor of Fine Arts at Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. She is married to Jonathan Kalb, theater critic and professor in the Theater Department at Hunter College. Heffernan is the mother of two sons: Oliver, the eldest, and Sam. In October 2013 she exhibited 11 paintings in her exhibition Sky is Falling, at the PPOW gallery, New York.