Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 19732019

(Paperback)

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An in-depth study of Mary Heilmann's mesmerizing works on paper that explores drawing as a form of daydreaming and memory-making for the influential abstract painter.

Mary Heilmann's works on paper are suffused with the same sensibility as her influential abstract paintings, a casual playfulness animating a rigorous attention to form and colour, resulting in joyful, evocative geometries. Their suggestive power reflects Heilmann's process of what she calls "daydreaming": a conjuring of the sights, sounds, and events of past and future travels, the cyclical nature of memory informing her return to various motifs across nearly five decades of work. Edited and with an introduction by curator Alexis Lowry, Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 1973-2019 includes an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by painter Ilana Savdie, all together offering a compelling account of this previously underexamined aspect of Heilmann's practice.

Complementing Heilmann's 2024 exhibition Daydream Nation at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, Works on Paper, 1973-2019 is edited and introduced by Alexis Lowry, with an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by artist Illana Savdie, together offering a compelling account of Heilmann's captivating work and its casual meditative power.

Author Bio

Jo Applin is a specialist in modern and contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on American and British art since 1945. Former Head of the Art Department at the Courtauld, she is now currently an elected member of the Courtauld's Governing Board and Director of the Centre for American Art.

Ilana Savdie is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, working primarily as a painter.

Alexis Lowry is Curatorial Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth New York. Previously, she was curator at Dia Art Foundation, New York. She has contributed to Art in America; Art Monthly; publications for the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Orlando; The Drawing Center, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in addition to books produced by Dia. In 2021, Lowry was the first invited curator-in-residence at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany.