Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures

(Hardback)

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The catalogue to accompany a major solo presentation of the work of the influential New York-based artist Mary Heilmann, her first in a public institution in the UK in 15 years.

Born in California in 1940, Heilmann studied ceramics and poetry before moving to New York in 1968 and taking up painting. A pioneer of infusing abstract painting with influences from craft traditions and popular culture (especially rock music and California's beach culture), Heilmann is one of the most important yet still underrecognised artists working today.

This publication explores Heilmann's approach to abstraction from two distinct but interrelated perspectives: the formal and the personal. The personal is reflected in the title Looking at Pictures, named after a section in the artist's memoir The All Night Movie (1999), in which she writes, 'Each of my paintings can be seen as an autobiographical marker', clearly represented here through works that relate to moments in the artist's friendships, memories of places where she has lived or spent time and her love of music and film. The juxtaposing formal aspect of her work is also explored, most evidently in her early paintings of grids and squares rendered in primary colours and in works that are based on architectural or interior planes, such as doors and mirrors.

As well as new essays by Lydia Yee (Chief Curator, Whitechapel Gallery) and Briony Fer (Professor of History of Art, University College London), and writings by the artist on key works, the publication will feature 100 beautiful full-colour illustrations of paintings, works on paper, furniture and ceramics from Heilmann's five-decade career.

Reviews

Cool and Californian, punky and urban - Mary Heilmann toys irreverently with the more uptight traditions of abstract art to create a new world of pleasure--Adrian Searle "The Guardian"
Heilmann's work has a light touch but the work carries real authority.... She's a playful painter, dragging her finger through paint, rotating canvases so drips flow in all directions, creating webs of lines, busy blizzards of marks, and calmer fields of colour.--Ben Luke "Evening Standard"
It's hard not to be optimistic when surrounded by Heilmann's works, they are sincere and effortlessly cool - and a testament of a woman who, during a time when painting was once thought to be dead, brought new life to the medium.--Ashton Chandler Guyatt "Aesthetica Magazine"

Author Bio

Lydia Yee is Chief Curator at Whitechapel Gallery. Briony Fer is Professor of History of Art at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy.