Deborah Dancy, also known as Deborah Muirhead (born 1949), is an American painter of large-scale abstractions in oil; she is also a

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique ...

and mixed media artist. Her work is also known to encompass

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is ...

. In 1981, she began to teach at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she taught painting for thirty-five years until her retirement in 2017. She has received awards such as a

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

Fellowship,

Women's Studio Workshop Women's Studio Workshop (WSW) is a nonprofit visual arts studio and private press offering residencies and educational workshops, located in Rosendale, New York, United States. The workshop was founded in 1974 by Ann Kalmbach, Tatana Kellner, ...

Studio Residency Grant, and a

YADDO Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

fellowship.

Early life and education

Dancy was born in 1949 in

Bessemer, Alabama Bessemer is a city in Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County, Alabama, United States and a southwestern suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham. The population was 26,019 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is within the Bi ...

. She was born into an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

family who treasured their heritage and ancestry. Dancy received her BFA degree from

Illinois Wesleyan University Illinois Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college in Bloomington, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1850, the central portion of the present campus was acquired in 1854 with the first building erected in 1856. History The in ...

in 1973, as well as an MS in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

and MFA in painting from

Illinois State University Illinois State University (ISU) is a public research university in Normal, Illinois, United States. It was founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University and is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teachin ...

, in 1976 and 1979, respectively.

Career

Her painting "Seed Travel" appeared in the

Stamford Museum and Nature Center The Stamford Museum & Nature Center, located in Stamford, Connecticut, is an art, history, nature, and agricultural sciences museum. The property covers 118 acres (c. 48 hectares) beginning about half a mile north of the Merritt Parkway. It was ...

. Dancy taught painting at the University of Connecticut, Storrs for thirty-five years, before retiring in 2017. Dancy’s works are in the permanent collections of numerous galleries and academic institutions, some of which include the

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 work ...

, the

Birmingham Museum of Art The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, United States, Amer ...

in Alabama, and the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

. Dancy was also nominated for a Connecticut Children's Book Award for Illustration for ''The Freedom Business'' as an illustrator and co-author. Dancy was the art director and the illustrator of ''The Freedom Business'', a book by her friend

Marilyn Nelson Marilyn Nelson (born April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth ...

Public collections

Allen Memorial Art Museum The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art. Overview The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

, Oberlin, Ohio *

, Birmingham, Ala. *

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is a museum in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. The museum is privately owned and was established in 1905. The museum acquired the old Cedar Rapids Public Library building after the library moved into a ne ...

, Cedar Rapids, Iowa *

Columbia Museum of Art The Columbia Museum of Art is an art museum in the American city of Columbia, South Carolina. History The Columbia Museum of Art was originally in the 1908 private residence of the city's Taylor family. Located on Senate Street in Columbia, ad ...

, Columbia, S.C. *

Davison Art Center Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. *

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...

Figge Art Museum The Figge Art Museum is located on the north bank of the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois regio ...

, Davenport, Iowa * Fine Art Museum, Bardo Arts Center, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, N.C. * Fine Arts Museum,

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

, Nashville, Tenn. *

Grinnell College Grinnell College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalis ...

, Grinnell, Iowa *

Hunter Museum of American Art The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, early modernism, r ...

, Chattanooga, Tenn. *

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a $5 million annual budget and approximately 75,000 visitors each year, it is Missouri's first and largest contemporary museum. Founders The core of the museum's per ...

, Kansas City, Mo. *

Mead Art Museum Mead Art Museum houses the fine art collection of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Opened in 1949, the building is named after architect William Rutherford Mead (class of 1867), of the prestigious architectural firm McKim, Mead & Whi ...

, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. *

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is a museum located in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, featuring several art collections. The permanent collection includes examples of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and sculpture, Southern regional art, O ...

, Montgomery, Ala. *

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

* Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Penn. *

Raclin Murphy Museum of Art The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art is the art museum of the University of Notre Dame, located on its campus near South Bend, Indiana. The museum occupies a new 70,000-square-foot building, which opened on 1 December 2023, and the surrounding Charles B ...

, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind. *

Spencer Museum of Art The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. History In 1917, the Kansas City art collector Sallie Casey Thayer donated her collection of over seven thousand works of art, ...

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

, Lawrence, Kans. *

United States Embassy The United States has the second largest number of active diplomatic posts of any country in the world after the People's Republic of China, including 272 bilateral posts (embassies and consulates) in 174 countries, as well as 11 permanent miss ...

Yaoundé Yaoundé (; , ) is the Capital city, capital city of Cameroon. It has a population of more than 2.8 million which makes it the second-largest city in the country after the port city Douala. It lies in the Centre Region (Cameroon), Centre Region o ...

, Cameroon

Awards and honors

Studio Residency Grant *

Banff Banff may refer to: Canada * Banff, Alberta, a town in Alberta, Canada ** Banff Airport ** Banff station ** Banff National Park ** Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity ** Banff (provincial electoral district) (1905–1909; 1975–1979) ** ...

Creative Residency Program Grant *

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

School of Fine Arts Outstanding Faculty Award * The

Chancellor’s Research Fellowship *

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...

Artist and Writers Creative Arts Fellowship * Nexus Press Artist Book Project Residency Award * Visual Studies Press Artist in Residency Award *

Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...

Nominee *

Fellowship *

New England Foundation for the Arts The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six Non-profit organization, not-for-profit Regional arts council (RAO), regional arts organizations funded by the National E ...

Regional National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Grant *

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Foundation Nominee * Juror's Merit Award, New American Talent: Laguna Gloria Museum * Connecticut Commission on the Arts Individual Artist Grant *

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Visiting Faculty Fellow *

Fellowship * Connecticut Book Award Illustration Nominee - "The Freedom Business"

Bibliography

*Armstrong, Kathleen, et al. "Children's Literature Reviews: 2008 Poetry Notables". ''Language Arts'', vol. 86, no. 6, 2009, pp. 468–472. JSTOR *"Book Design, Digital Imaging and Photography". ''Clarellen'', Clarellen and Cary Graphic Arts Press, New York, 2001 *Danza, Emmie. "Deborah Dancy, Chasing the Light". ''Gallery Artist Deborah Dancy Reviewed on The Drawing Center Column, "Annotations"'', The Drawing Center, June 27, 2013 *Edwards, Jeff. “‘It’s a Constant Struggle to Keep the 'Thingness' at Bay’: An Interview with Deborah Dancy". ''Artpulse'', 2015 *"Front Matter". ''African American Review'', vol. 41, no. 3, 2007 * "Flatfile Collection, Queen Bea". Artspace New Haven. 2016 *King, Leslie. "Gumbo Ya Ya : Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists". ''Hathi Trust Digital Library'', Midmarch Arts Press, 1995 *McNALLY, OWEN. “Painter Muirhead peers through a history, darkly". ''Courant.com'', Hartford Courant, September 13, 2018 *Mercer, Valerie J., et al. "Examining Identities". ''Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts'', vol. 86, no. 1/4, 2012, pp. 66–87. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43492326. *Mobilio, Albert. "The Bookness of Not-Books: Modern and Contemporary Artists' Books", ''The Paris Review'', June 22, 2017 *Nelson, Marilyn. "The Freedom Business (Ca. 1790)". ''Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom'', edited by James Brewer Stewart. by James O. Horton, University of Massachusetts Press, 2010, pp. 257–258. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vk4gq.16. *Perosino, Bruno. "Marking 35 Years: The Work of Deborah Dancy". ''The William Benton Museum of Art'', July 18, 2017 *Raynor, Vivian. "Spirit in the Wood/Paint". ''The New York Times'', Sunday, February 26, 1989 *Raynor, Vivian, "Stamford Museum". ''The New York Times'', Sunday: May 2, 1989 *Robert, Kiener. "In Works with a Visceral, Spontaneous Feel, Deborah Dancy Explores the Amorphous Zone between Abstraction and Representation". ''New England Home Magazine'' *Robin Kahn. ''ROBIN KAHN'', January 1, 1970. *Rosoff, Patricia. “Small Vistas, The 10-Year Show at 100 Pearl". ''Hartford Advocate'', July 15, 2004. *Zimmer, William. "ART; A Glimpse of Contemporary Taste". ''The New York Times'', February 25, 1996. *Zimmer, William. "Connecticut Biennial". ''The New York Times'', April 14, 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dancy, Deborah 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women artists 21st-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women artists 21st-century American women artists 1949 births African-American painters African-American printmakers American contemporary painters American printmakers American women academics American women painters American women printmakers Living people University of Connecticut faculty