Herman Maril was an artist and emeritus professor of painting at the University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

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Biography

Maril was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908 and studied at the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts

Maryland Institute College of Art

Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...

. He had 40 one-man exhibitions in his career with his first in 1935 at the Howard University Gallery of Art

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

, and taught at the University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

for more than 31 years. Examples of his work are in the collections of The Smithsonian Institution as well as The Phillips Collection, both in Washington D.C., as well as numerous national and international museums including The Museum of Modern Art in New York. A major retrospective of his paintings was mounted at The Baltimore Museum of Art in the mid-1960s. Marking the centennial of Maril's birth, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum is showing a second major retrospective of his work in 2008. His estate is currently represented by David Findlay Jr Fine Art in New York City and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Style

Maril was a modernist painter whose style reduced figures and objects to their essence. Subjects ranged from urban landscapes to coastal seascapes. Maril's art from the beginning showed a consistent development: it was nature-based, abstractly organized, and simplified in form and content. The noted artist and critic Olin Dows, wrote about the then 26-year-old artist, "Herman Maril's painting is reserved, and, like most good painting, it is simple. He is interested in the essentials. Each picture has its core; each is beautifully conceived and organized. It is clothed in a certain poetry."

External links

• Works by Herman Maril at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Artwork by Maril, Artnet.com