Mary Henry (artist)
Encyclopedia
Mary Henry born Mary M. Dill, was an American
artist whose work, most notably large oil painting
s and acrylics
but also prints
, was characteristized by geometric abstraction
. Many of her pieces are diptych
s and some are triptych
s. Some of her work resembles, variously, op art
, constructivism
, or even psychedelic art
.
, Mary Henry studied 1933–34 at the California College of the Arts
(then called the California School of Arts and Crafts) in Oakland, California
, where her teachers included modernists Ethel Abeel, Glen Wessels, and Marie Togni. She won a prize in a printmaking contest sponsored by Iowa State University
(Ames, Iowa
), and was invited there to teach applied art in their home economics
department. Her "childhood sweetheart" Wilbur Henry "reluctantly" agreed to marry her and accompany her to Iowa, where he completed a master's degree in entomology
while she taught.
During World War II
, back in California while her husband served in the military, Henry studied lithography
at San Francisco School of Fine Arts and worked drafting engineering drawing
s at Hewlett-Packard
; this drafting experience would later allow her to draw uncommonly straight lines freehand in executing her paintings.
In 1939 in Berkeley, California
, Henry attended a lecture by Bauhaus
artist László Moholy-Nagy
. This led to her studying with him at the Institute of Design in Chicago
in 1945, leaving her daughter Suzanne in California with Henry's mother. She studied drawing, architectural drawing, photography, texture, and sculpture; her work was so good as to result in a job offer—the first that the institute had ever made to a woman—but she decided upon her husband's discharge from the military that she had to follow him to Arkansas
where he had accepted a job with the U.S. Public Health Service
, fighting malaria
.
Henry traveled to Europe
in 1962; she was divorced in 1964, which marks the beginning of her career as a mature artist. She lived in Mendocino, California
, running a bed-and-breakfast and painting. Matthew Kangas writes, "It was as if, after 20 years of fulfilling conventional expectations as a wife, worker, and mother, she was released into a constant stream of creative production, capturing the exuberant hedonism of Northern California, while reined in by the consummate formal control she had assimilated as an American Constructivist in Chicago." Her 1968 show at Arleigh Gallery in San Francisco resulted in a write-up in Artforum
.
In 1976, Henry traveled to Alaska
before settling in Washington, where she has lived since 1981 on Whidbey Island
. Also in 1976, at Centrum
in Port Townsend, Washington
, she attended a master painter's class with Jack Tworkov
, then in his seventies. Tworkov remarked the affinity between their work; according to Kangas, the "linear precision and complexity" of Tworkov's late work owes a great deal to Henry; he, in turn, greatly encouraged her in her work.
Henry still made art until about 2003, but she ceased painting in her early 90s when she could no longer stretch her own canvases.
Henry died after suffering a stroke.
, Tacoma Art Museum
, Portland Art Museum
, Institute of Design IIT, Microsoft
, Safeco
, Hewlett-Packard
, and Amgen
, among others.
Henry has been particularly championed by curator Matthew Kangas, who included her work in a salon des refuses
(Seattle, 1980), in numerous shows (1985–2000) at the Bumbershoot
arts festival, and in a 1994 show of works owned by Seattle City Light
, as well as curating solo shows of her work at Open Space (Victoria, British Columbia
, 1985) and the Wright Exhibition Space (Seattle, 2007).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist whose work, most notably large oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
s and acrylics
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...
but also prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, was characteristized by geometric abstraction
Geometric abstract art
Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective compositions...
. Many of her pieces are diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
s and some are triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
s. Some of her work resembles, variously, op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, constructivism
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
, or even psychedelic art
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
.
Life
Born in Sonoma, CaliforniaSonoma, California
Sonoma is a historically significant city in Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County, California, USA, surrounding its historic town plaza, a remnant of the town's Mexican colonial past. It was the capital of the short-lived California Republic...
, Mary Henry studied 1933–34 at the California College of the Arts
California College of the Arts
California College of the Arts , founded in 1907, is known for its broad, interdisciplinary programs in art, design, architecture, and writing. It has two campuses, one in Oakland and one in San Francisco, California, USA...
(then called the California School of Arts and Crafts) in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, where her teachers included modernists Ethel Abeel, Glen Wessels, and Marie Togni. She won a prize in a printmaking contest sponsored by Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
(Ames, Iowa
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
), and was invited there to teach applied art in their home economics
Home Economics
Home economics is the profession and field of study that deals with the economics and management of the home and community...
department. Her "childhood sweetheart" Wilbur Henry "reluctantly" agreed to marry her and accompany her to Iowa, where he completed a master's degree in entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
while she taught.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, back in California while her husband served in the military, Henry studied lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
at San Francisco School of Fine Arts and worked drafting engineering drawing
Engineering drawing
An engineering drawing, a type of technical drawing, is used to fully and clearly define requirements for engineered items.Engineering drawing produces engineering drawings . More than just the drawing of pictures, it is also a language—a graphical language that communicates ideas and information...
s at Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
; this drafting experience would later allow her to draw uncommonly straight lines freehand in executing her paintings.
In 1939 in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, Henry attended a lecture by Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
artist László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
. This led to her studying with him at the Institute of Design in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1945, leaving her daughter Suzanne in California with Henry's mother. She studied drawing, architectural drawing, photography, texture, and sculpture; her work was so good as to result in a job offer—the first that the institute had ever made to a woman—but she decided upon her husband's discharge from the military that she had to follow him to Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
where he had accepted a job with the U.S. Public Health Service
United States Public Health Service
The Public Health Service Act of 1944 structured the United States Public Health Service as the primary division of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare , which later became the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The PHS comprises all Agency Divisions of Health and...
, fighting malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
Henry traveled to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in 1962; she was divorced in 1964, which marks the beginning of her career as a mature artist. She lived in Mendocino, California
Mendocino, California
Mendocino is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Mendocino is located south of Fort Bragg, at an elevation of 154 feet...
, running a bed-and-breakfast and painting. Matthew Kangas writes, "It was as if, after 20 years of fulfilling conventional expectations as a wife, worker, and mother, she was released into a constant stream of creative production, capturing the exuberant hedonism of Northern California, while reined in by the consummate formal control she had assimilated as an American Constructivist in Chicago." Her 1968 show at Arleigh Gallery in San Francisco resulted in a write-up in Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
.
In 1976, Henry traveled to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
before settling in Washington, where she has lived since 1981 on Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island is one of nine islands located in Island County, Washington, in the United States. Whidbey is located about north of Seattle, and lies between the Olympic Peninsula and the I-5 corridor of western Washington...
. Also in 1976, at Centrum
Centrum (arts organization)
Centrum, located in Fort Worden State Park near Port Townsend, Washington in Jefferson County is a multidisciplinary nonprofit arts organization that presents workshops and performances in a wide variety of artistic disciplines.-Origin:...
in Port Townsend, Washington
Port Townsend, Washington
Port Townsend is a city in Jefferson County, Washington, United States, approximately north-northwest of Seattle . The population was 9,113 at the 2010 census an increase of 9.3% over the 2000 census. It is the county seat and only incorporated city of Jefferson County...
, she attended a master painter's class with Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov was a Polish born American abstract expressionist painter.He was born in Biała Podlaska, Russian Empire and immigrated to the United States in 1913 with his mother and younger sister who would later become known as Janice Biala...
, then in his seventies. Tworkov remarked the affinity between their work; according to Kangas, the "linear precision and complexity" of Tworkov's late work owes a great deal to Henry; he, in turn, greatly encouraged her in her work.
Henry still made art until about 2003, but she ceased painting in her early 90s when she could no longer stretch her own canvases.
Henry died after suffering a stroke.
Honors and awards
- Member of American Abstract ArtistsAmerican Abstract ArtistsAmerican Abstract Artists was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas, and for...
since 1992 - Flintridge Award for Visual Artists (2001)
- Twining Humber Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2006)
Shows and collections
Henry's work is in the collections of the Seattle Art MuseumSeattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...
, Tacoma Art Museum
Tacoma Art Museum
In May 2003, Tacoma Art Museum opened a new facility twice the size of its previous home, allowing the museum to expand on its vision and mission. American Institute of Architects AIA Gold Medal winner Antoine Predock designed the building located in the heart of Tacoma’s Cultural District...
, Portland Art Museum
Portland Art Museum
The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it the oldest art museum on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the United States. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum became one of the twenty-five largest art museums in...
, Institute of Design IIT, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Safeco
Safeco
Safeco Insurance, a member of Liberty Mutual Group, is a national U.S. insurance company. It holds naming rights to the Seattle Mariners' baseball stadium, Safeco Field.- History :...
, Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, and Amgen
Amgen
Amgen Inc. is an international biotechnology company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. Located in the Conejo Valley, Amgen is the world's largest independent biotech firm. The company employs approximately 17,000 staff members. Its products include Epogen, Aranesp, Enbrel, Kineret,...
, among others.
Henry has been particularly championed by curator Matthew Kangas, who included her work in a salon des refuses
Salon des Refusés
The Salon des Refusés, French for “exhibition of rejects” , is generally an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.-Background:...
(Seattle, 1980), in numerous shows (1985–2000) at the Bumbershoot
Bumbershoot
Bumbershoot is an annual international music and arts festival held in Seattle, Washington. One of North America's largest such festivals, it takes place every Labor Day weekend at the 74-acre Seattle Center, which was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle Center includes indoor theaters,...
arts festival, and in a 1994 show of works owned by Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light is the public utility providing electrical power to Seattle, Washington and parts of its metropolitan area, including all of Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and parts of unincorporated King County, Burien, Normandy Park, Seatac, Renton, and Tukwila...
, as well as curating solo shows of her work at Open Space (Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
, 1985) and the Wright Exhibition Space (Seattle, 2007).
External links
- Mary Henry on pdxcontemporaryart.com
- Mary Henry at Flintridge Foundation
- American Abstract Artists
- Mary Henry, 96, Northwest painter (obituary), Seattle Times, July 5, 2009.