Marcia Jean Hafif (née Woods; August 15, 1929 – April 17, 2018) was an American painter born in

Pomona, California Pomona ( ) is a city in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. Pomona is located in the Pomona Valley, between the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's population was ...

. Her work has been associated with the Radical Painting Group, an

artist collective An artist collective or art group or artist group is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything t ...

focused on

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

and active during the 1970s and 1980s, which she formed together with Joseph Marioni,

Olivier Mosset Olivier Mosset (born 1944 in Bern, Switzerland) is a Swiss visual artist.

, and Erik Saxon.

Life and career

Hafif was born on August 15, 1929, in Pomona, California. After graduating from

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

in 1951, Hafif married and worked as a third-grade teacher. In the late 50s, she divorced her husband and began doing graduate work in

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

and Far Eastern Art at Claremont Graduate School. In the summer of 1960, Hafif took a class with Richards Ruben, through whom she met

Walter Hopps Walter "Chico" Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine pract ...

and various artists showing at

Ferus Gallery The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery which operated from 1957 to 1966. In 1957, the gallery was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California. In 1958, it was relocated across the street to ...

in Los Angeles. In 1961 Hafif traveled to Italy, planning to spend a year in Florence. Passing through Rome, Hafif was drawn to the atmosphere of the city, remaining there for almost eight years. Returning to California in 1969, Hafif entered the first MFA class at the

University of California at Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 ...

. She temporarily left painting to experiment in photography, film, sound, text, and installation. In 1970 Hafif began working on ''Notes on Bob and Nancy'' (1970-1977), an hour-long film featuring fellow UCI graduate students Nancy Buchanan and Robert Walker. Hafif's MFA thesis exhibition, ''U.C.I. Gallery, Irvine, CA 1971'' (1971) featured 12 black and white photographs that depicted details of the gallery space in which they were displayed. This exhibition revealed an interest in "doing something that refers back to itself." In 1971, Hafif moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to search out a return to painting at a time when the validity of painting was in doubt. She awoke on the morning of January 1, 1972, to make her first pencil on paper drawing. Starting in the upper left corner, Hafif covered the page across and down with short vertical marks. As she shifted back into painting, Hafif continued in this mode, methodically covering her canvases with short vertical marks of paint. Over the course of one year, Hafif developed a painting series that transitioned from white to black. ''An Extended Gray Scale'' (1972–73) came to encompass 106 oil paintings, each 22 x 22 inches. Each canvas was painted in a different tone of gray, determined by Hafif's ability to visually distinguish a difference in tone to the canvas preceding it. Exhibiting for more than eight years with

Sonnabend Gallery Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...

in Soho and Paris, she developed series of paintings that would become the basis of what came to be called The Inventory: 1974, Mass Tone Paintings; 1975, Wall Paintings; 1976, Pencil Drawings; 1978, Neutral Mix Paintings; 1979, Broken Color Paintings at The Clocktower with

Alanna Heiss Alanna Heiss (born May 13, 1943, in Louisville, Kentucky) is the Founder and Director of Clocktower Productions, a non profit arts organization, online radio station, and program partnership with six cultural institutions in three boroughs in N ...

; 1981, Black Paintings. During this time she also published articles on painting in

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

: “Beginning Again” in 1978, and in Art in America: “Getting on With Painting,” 1981, and “True Colors,” in 1989. In the 1980s and 1990s, she developed new series, along with relationships with galleries in Europe, first in Munich, then Düsseldorf, and eventually Vienna, London, Paris, and elsewhere. Living part-time in California after 1999 still other series of paintings have appeared, most recently the Shade Paintings. Hafif died on April 17, 2018, at the age of 88.

Exhibitions

*2021 - work was included in the exhibition ''

Women in Abstraction Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century or ''Elles font l'abstraction. Une autre histoire de l'abstraction au XXe siècle'' was a major exhibition of 20th century abstract art created by women. It was curated by ...

'' at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

. *2018 **"Marcia Hafif: A Place Apart",

Pomona College Museum of Art The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery, which had been home to the Pomona College ...

, September 4 - December 22, 2018 **"Marcia Hafif: Films (1970–1999)",

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus The Lenbachhaus () is a building housing the Städtische Galerie (English: Municipal Gallery) art museum in Munich's ''Kunstareal''. The building The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between ...

und Kunstbau, Munich, July 17- September 30, 2018 *2010 - "From the Inventory: Black Paintings, 1979-1980", Newman Popiashvili Gallery *2012 - "Marcia Hafif: From the Inventory – Late Roman Paintings", Larry Becker Contemporary Art, May 5 – July 7, 2012 *2015 - "Marcia Hafif: From the Inventory", Laguna Art Museum, June 28 – September 27, 2015 * 1985 - "Marcia Hafif. Three Paintings", Rupert Walser Gallery Munich * 1969 - "Marcia Hafif. New Paintings", Roma, Galleria Editalia Qui arte contemporanea.

Collections

Hafif's work is held in collections worldwide including The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hafif, Marcia 1929 births 2018 deaths People from Pomona, California 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American painters 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters Painters from California Pomona College alumni University of California, Irvine alumni