Geoffrey Bartlett was born in Melbourne in 1952. He studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology from 1971-73 and undertook a post-graduate diploma in 1976. In 1983 Bartlett was awarded a Harkness fellowship and completed a two-year Master of Fine Arts (Hons) at Columbia University, New York. Bartlett has lectured in sculpture at Deakin University, RMIT, Chisholm Institute and the Victorian College of the Arts. From 1990 to 1994 he was Senior Lecturer in Sculpture at Monash University.

In 2007 the National Gallery of Victoria presented a major exhibition of his sculpture from 1987 to 2007. Bartlett has held over thirty solo exhibitions including Geoffrey Bartlett, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 2004; Geoffrey Bartlett: Sculpture 1977-94, at Waverly City Art Gallery and touring Victorian regional galleries in 1994-95; and Geoffrey Bartlett: Silver Cloud, at Deakin University, Melbourne and University of Technology, Sydney in 2001. His work has been selected for survey exhibitions including the Mildura Sculpture Triennial, the Australian Sculpture Triennial, the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, the McClelland Sculpture Survey, and the National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition, National Gallery of Australia.

Bartlett has undertaken public sculpture commissions for the National Gallery of Victoria, the City of Auckland, the City of Melbourne, the City of Newcastle, the Australian National University and Melbourne Docklands. He is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Parliament House Art Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art and in many regional, university, corporate and private collections. Bartlett was awarded the Ian Potter Foundation Sculpture Award in 1982 and the Australia Council studio in Tuscany in 1984.

Geoffrey Bartlett lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.