Mary Heilmann is an American painter based in New York City and Bridgehampton, NY. She has had solo shows and travelling exhibitions at galleries such as

303 Gallery 303 Gallery is an art gallery in Manhattan, New York. It was established in 1984 by owner and director Lisa Spellman, described by art critic Jerry Saltz as "one of the greatest New York gallerists of our time". The gallery hosts contemporary work ...

(NY, NY) and

Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery. History Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by co-president Marc Payot. In 2020, Ewan Venters was a ...

(Zurich) and museums including the

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limit ...

(Columbus, OH) and the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

(NY, NY). Heilmann has been cited by many younger artists, particularly women, as an influential figure.

Early life and education

Heilmann was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, in 1940. In 1947 her family relocated to

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

. While in Los Angeles she became a member of her local diving and swimming team, an activity that she would devote herself to until 1953 when her father died of cancer and the family moved back to San Francisco. Upon returning Heilmann enrolled in a small Catholic school. As a high school student in late-1950s San Francisco she experienced the emergence of the

Beat poetry The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generation ...

and

City Lights ''City Lights'' is a 1931 American silent romantic comedy film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl ( Virginia Cherrill) an ...

poetry scene. In 1959 Heilmann started at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

. She recalled that it was “the beach, the surf, the surfers, the great shacky beach houses” that drew her there, an extension of the life she had made for herself in her late teens at San Francisco’s North Beach. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in literature, with an art minor, in 1962, Heilmann returned to San Francisco in 1963 to attend San Francisco State College (now

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

) in the hopes of earning a teaching credential. While at SFSC she met the artist

Ron Nagle Ron Nagle (born February 21, 1939) is an American sculptor, musician and songwriter. He is known for small-scale, refined sculptures of great detail and compelling color. Nagle lives and works in San Francisco, California. Life Born in San Fr ...

and began studying ceramics in earnest, having dabbled in the medium while at UC Santa Barbara. In 1965 she began the Master’s program in ceramics and sculpture at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, drawn as so many were to the modernist ceramicist

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic cr ...

. While there she studied not only with Voulkos, but also with the sculptor and ceramicist

Jim Melchert James Frederick Melchert (December 2, 1930 – June 1, 2023) was an American artist best known for his ceramics and sculptures. Education After earning an AB in art history from Princeton in 1952, he moved to Japan where he taught English for ...

, and the painter and print-maker

Karl Kasten Karl Albert Kasten (March 5, 1916 – May 3, 2010) was a painter-printmaker-educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early life Kasten, fourth child of Ferdinand Kasten and his wife Barbara Anna Kasten, grew up in San Francisco's Richmond D ...

. During her time at Berkeley Heilmann became friends with the artist

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

, who was in school at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

. Naumann introduced Heilmann to his teacher, the artist

William T. Wiley William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as ...

who would also teach Heilmann for a short time.

Career

1960s

Heilmann moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

after graduating from Berkeley in 1968. She felt that both her interests and the work she was making (see ''Ooze'', 1967) would find a kinship with shows like Dick Bellamy’s ''Arp to Artschwager Show'' at Noah Goldowski Gallery;

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. Sh ...

’s ''Eccentric Abstraction'' at

Fischbach Gallery The Fischbach Gallery is an art gallery in New York City. It was founded by Marilyn Cole Fischbach in 1960 at 799 Madison Avenue. The gallery in its early days became known for hosting the first significant solo exhibitions of now leading art w ...

; and the ''Primary Structures Show'' at the

Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Muse ...

. But such fellowship was not to be. Heilmann was excluded from a number of shows from that era, with 1969’s ''Anti-Illusion'' at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

being particularly crushing. It was this rejection that led Heilmann away from sculpture (see ''The Big Dipper'', 1969) and towards painting. She chose not to embrace the Color Field painting of the moment, and instead produced what she has called a “materials-based sort of conceptual, anti-aesthetic, earth-colored, ironic painting that was often hard to look at.” These early paintings were, in her view, devoid of emotional content, possessed of a non-inflected, pure color. For Heilmann the goal was a painting that eschewed craft and seduction, and was instead “tough” and “plain.” Heilmann places her work in the tradition of geometric painting—though she has also said that “abstraction” is a perfectly suitable term as well—and sees herself in conversation with Kazmir Malevich,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...

, and

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art ...

1970s

One of Heilmann's earliest successes as a young painter was her 1972 inclusion in the Annual Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she exhibited a red monochrome piece entitled ''The Closet'', also known as ''Ties in My Closet''. Of her approach to painting, Heilmann said:

When I make a painting, I’m like a kid stacking blocks; I push the shapes around in my mind, I count. It’s a way to begin. I was a potter first, and that’s an activity that also depends upon geometry, a round topological geometry of surfaces and spirals. Then I was a sculptor. I became a painter in the early ‘70s, but my orientation has always been that of someone who builds things.

From 1976 until 1981 Heilmann was a regular in exhibitions at New York’s influential

Holly Solomon Gallery Holly Solomon Gallery opened in New York City in 1975 at 392 West Broadway in Soho, Manhattan. Started by Holly Solomon - aspiring actress, style-icon, and collector - and her husband Horace Solomon, the gallery was initially known for launching ...

, with two solo shows there during that time (1976’s The Vent Series and 1978’s New Paintings).In 1977 Heilmann moved to the neighborhood that is now known as

TriBeCa Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

(Triangle Below Canal), having previously lived in

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

and Chinatown. But her time there was short, as

Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...

died in August 1978, this was a turning-point moment for Heilmann. The “family” that she had formed in New York City—including Matta-Clark, Norman Fisher (who died in 1977),

Keith Sonnier Keith Sonnier (July 31, 1941 – July 18, 2020) was a postminimalist sculptor, performance artist, video and light artist. Sonnier was one of the first artists to use light in sculpture in the 1960s. With his use of neon in combination with ephem ...

Liza Bear Liza may refer to * Liza (name), including a list of people named Liza * ''Liza'' (fish), a genus of mullets * ''Liza'' (1972 film), a 1972 Italian film * ''Liza'' (1978 film), a 1978 Malayalam horror film * Hurricane Liza (disambiguation), the ...

Jackie Winsor Vera Jacqueline Winsor (born October 20, 1941) is a Canadian-born American sculptor. Her style, which developed in the early 1970s as a reaction to the work of minimal artists, has been characterized as post-minimal, anti-form, and process ar ...

, and Suzie Harris, among others—dispersed after Matta-Clark’s death. Heilmann returned to San Francisco. While there she would paint ''The End,'' an homage to her friendship with Matta-Clark and Fisher and a requiem for the life she once had in New York City. Heilmann said of this time in San Francisco:

Now the work came from a different place. Instead of working out of the dogma of
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
, non-image
formalism Formalism may refer to: * Form (disambiguation) * Formal (disambiguation) * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scien ...
, I began to see that the choices in the work depended more on the content for their meaning. It was the end of modernism, and though I hadn’t heard the news, the beginning of postmodernism. It was a big minute for me. Everything would be different.

Heilmann returned to New York in 1979, the same year she finished ''Save the Last Dance for Me'', a painting that would go onto symbolize a break between the work she made before 1979 and the more mature work she produced after.

1980s

However, Heilmann’s return coincided with what she felt was a sort of painting in exile. Having given up drugs and alcohol after Suzie Harris’s death, Heilmann no longer believed she had a place in New York’s Downtown scene. Though she would go on to make a number of artistic breakthroughs during this time, notably the painting ''Rosebud'' (1983). It was not until she met the gallerist Pat Hearn in 1986—and her subsequent representation by and show at the gallery later that year—that Heilmann recovered her sense of place in the New York City art world. With her involvement in the Pat Hearn Gallery and gallery-adjacent world Heilmann discovered a renewed connection to New York City and its Downtown scene. She became close with the artist

Jack Pierson Jack Pierson (born 1960 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) is a photographer and an artist. Pierson is known for his photographs, collages, word sculptures, installations, drawings and artists books. His "Self-Portrait" series was shown in the 2004 Whi ...

and the gallerist Tom Cugliani. Her first solo show with Pat Hearn was a success and led to more exhibitions in Europe and Japan. Heilmann was a part of the Downtown art world’s meteoric rise to respectability. Gone was the outlaw art world that she had felt so connected to. Hearn sold her 9th Street space and moved into a newer, larger one in SoHo. Heilmann went with her, but the artists Heilmann most favored did not: Philip Taffe,

Peter Schuyff Peter Schuyff (born 1958 Baarn, Netherlands) is an internationally exhibited Dutch-born American painter, musician and sculptor. In 1967 moved with his family to Vancouver, Canada. Schuyff's mother was an artist and his father a professor of econo ...

, and Milan Kunc.

1990s

As the 1980s rolled into the 1990s Heilmann “abandoned” her picture of herself as an outsider, moving up the art world ranks with Pierson,

Ross Bleckner Ross Bleckner (born May 12, 1949) is an American artist. He currently lives and works in New York City. His artistic focus is on painting, and he held his first solo exhibition in 1975. Some of his art work reflected on the AIDS epidemic. Early ...

and

David Reed David Reed may refer to: Entertainment * David Vern Reed (1924–1989), American comics writer * David E. Reed (1927–1990), ''Reader's Digest'' editor * David Reed (artist) (born 1946), American artist * David Jay Reed (born 1950), artist * Dav ...

. Younger artists like

Jessica Stockholder Jessica Stockholder (born 1959) is a Canadian-American artist known for site-specific installation art, installation works and sculptures that are often described as "paintings in space."Kino, Carol"Go Ahead, Play With (And On) the Art,"''The ...

and

Lari Pittman Lari George Pittman (born 1952 in Glendale, California) is a Colombian-American contemporary artist and painter. Pittman is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Painting and Drawing at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. Early life ...

looked up to Heilmann. No longer longing to be “alienated,” she embraced that she had become part of the establishment, what she saw as a sort of return to her roots, a place of, as she called it, the “Catholic middle class of schoolteachers, engineers, cops, and nurses.” Since the 1990s Heilmann’s influence among a younger generation of painters has grown. The curator Elizabeth Armstrong observed that Heilmann has “played a significant role in the revival of painting, especially on the West Coast, where former students such

Ingrid Calame Ingrid Calame (born 1965) is an American artist based in Los Angeles, known for her abstract, map-like paintings inspired by human detritus. Her works are in the permanent collections of museums worldwide including the Los Angeles Museum of Contem ...

Laura Owens Laura Owens (born 1970) is an American painter, gallery owner and educator. She emerged in the late 1990s from the Los Angeles art scene. She is known for large-scale paintings that combine a variety of art historical references and painterly te ...

, and Monique Prieto were helping to reinvigorate painting for a new generation.” In 1995 Heilmann moved her studio out of her TriBeCa loft to a farm in the town of

Bridgehampton Bridgehampton is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on the South Fork of Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 1,756 at the 2010 census. Bridgehampton is in the town of Southampton, on Long Island. Shortly after ...

on Long Island. With the purchase of the house and the subsequent shift away from the city, Heilmann’s work returned to its earlier emphasis on the importance water and the ocean, as was evident not only in the titles she chose for her paintings, but in her palette and use of wave imagery.

2000s

The 2000s have seen Heilmann return to her connection with ceramics, producing cups, plates, and saucers with the artist Steve Keister, thereby reincorporating the vessels into her practice. Further, starting in 2002 Heilmann expanded her interests and began making furniture, specifically the creation of simple yet vibrantly colorful chairs (plywood and nylon), what she calls “home arts.” Heilmann’s furniture making follows in the tradition of artists like

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

and

Franz West Franz West (16 February 1947 – 25 July 2012) was an Austrian artist. He is best known for his unconventional objects and sculptures, installations and furniture work which often require an involvement of the audience. Early life and e ...

, however in having the chairs speak with and relate to the paintings Heilmann engages with them not merely as objects to be sat in but rather works of art installed in conversation with the paintings themselves. She said of her pairings: “I have designed the chairs to fit in sculpturally and pictorially with the look and feel of the rest of my work. Sometimes I even make a painting and a chair to work well together.” Since the beginning of the 2000s Heilmann has seen an increased interest in her work with solo shows at

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the f ...

in London, 303 Gallery in New York, and Hauser & Wirth in Zurich. She has received grants from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

, the Guggenheim Foundation, and an

Anonymous Was a Woman "Anonymous Was a Woman" is the fourth episode of the eleventh season of the American police procedural drama ''NCIS'', and the 238th episode overall. It originally aired on CBS in the United States on October 15, 2013. The episode is written b ...

award in 2006. Perhaps most importantly, Heilmann was welcomed into the art historical canon with her 2007-2008 retrospective, ''To Be Someone''. The show began at the

Orange County Museum of Art The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. The museum's collection comprises more than 4,500 objects, with a concentration ...

in Newport Beach, CA and travelled to the

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

, the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio with its final stop at the New Museum in New York, NY. Writing in the New York Times the art critic Ken Johnson concluded that: “A part of Ms. Heilmann rebels against the elevation of fine art over the applied arts and resists the separation of art and life. The furniture and dishes reveal an expansive impulse to produce a holistic world…she continues to funnel her most ambitious energies into the concentrative art of painting and in doing so she achieves states of grace that are harder won than they look.”

Selected Solo and Two-Person Shows

2022: Daydream 303 Gallery, New York 2021: Past Present Future, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich 2020: Highway, Oceans, Daydreams, Hauser & Wirth Southampton, NY 2018: Wavy: Sabra Moon Elliot and Mary Heilmann, Tripoli Gallery, Southampton, NY – Memory Remix, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles 2017: RYB: Mary Heilmann Paintings, 1975–78, Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York – Mary Heilmann: Painting Pictures, The Dan Flavin Art Institute, Bridgehampton, NY 2016: Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2015: Geometrics: Waves, Roads, etc., 303 Gallery, New York – Sunset, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York – Two by Two: Mary Heilmann & David Reed, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin 2013: Mary, Blinky, Yay! Mary Heilmann and Blinky Palermo in a Dialogue, Kunst Museum Bonn, Bonn – Mary Heilmann, Another Green World, Häusler Contemporary, Münich 2012: BACA 2012: Mary Heilmann: Good Vibrations, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands; Neues Museum, Nuremberg, Germany (traveling exhibition) – Visions, Waves and Roads, Hauser & Wirth, London – Jacci Den Hartog + Mary Heilmann, The Suburban, Oak Park, IL 2010: Home Sweet Home, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin – Weather Report: Drawings and Prints, Museum Ludwig, Cologne 2009: Two-Lane Blacktop, 303 Gallery, New York 2008: Some Pretty Colors, Zwirner & Wirth, New York 2007: Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, organized by Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; New Museum, New York (traveling exhibition) 2006: Saturday Night Kiss, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich – Mary Heilmann: New Etchings, Crown Point Gallery, San Francisco 2005: Heaven & Hell, 303 Gallery, New York 2004: Hauser & Wirth, London 2003: Mary Heilmann: All Tomorrow’s Parties, Secession, Vienna – Mary Heilmann: The Architecture of Heaven, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2002: Mary Heilmann: New Paintings, American Fine Arts, New York – Mary Heilmann: Home, Kenny Schachter Gallery, New York 2001: Hauser & Wirth, Zürich – Mary Heilmann—Joanne Greenbaum, Greengrassi Gallery, London – Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna – Camden Arts Centre, London 2000: Mary Heilmann: Malerei, Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, Germany; Galerie Vera Munroe, Hamburg – Jessica Stockholder—Mary Heilmann (Gemälde aus der Sammlung Hauser & Wirth), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gall, Switzerland 1999: The All Night Movie, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich 1998: Mary Heilmann: Paintings, Pat Hearn Gallery, New York – Mary Heilmann: Selected Works, 1978–1998, Gallery of Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas 1997: Richard Telles Gallery, Los Angeles – Mary Heilmann, This and That, Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst, Zürich – Mary Heilmann: Paintings, 1973–1997, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich – Modern Art: Paintings and Papers, Wolfgang Häusler, Münich – Galerie Stadtpark, Krems, Austria 1995: New Works on Paper, Pat Hearn Gallery, New York – Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp – Mary Heilmann and Elizabeth Cannon, Christine Rose Gallery, New York 1994: Mary Heilmann: Paintings, Drawings, Ceramics, Beaver College Art Gallery, Glenside, Pennsylvania – Works, 1971–1994, M Gallery, Kunstvermittlung, Bochum, Germany – Greatest Hits, Pat Hearn Gallery, New York – Walter/McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco – Mary Heilmann, Jene Highstein, Baumgartner Galleries, Washington, D.C. 1993: Pat Hearn Gallery, New York 1991: Pat Hearn Gallery, New York – Green Gallery, Bay Harbor Islands, Florida 1990: Mary Heilmann und Jessica Stockholder, Galerie Isabella Kacprzak, Cologne – Mary Heilmann: A Survey, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston – Mary Heilmann: New Paintings, Fuller Gross Gallery, San Francisco – Robbin Lockett Gallery, Chicago 1989: Pat Hearn Gallery, New York 1988: Gallery Mukai, Tokyo – Pat Hearn Gallery, New York – Hillman Holland Gallery, Atlanta, GA 1986: Pat Hearn Gallery, New York 1983: Clocktower, New York – Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco 1981: Mary Heilmann: Recent Works, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York – Mary Heilmann: Ceramics, Holly Solomon Editions, New York 1980: Gemälde, Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf 1979: Galleri Wallner Fersens, Malmö, Sweden – Paintings, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York – Paintings and Drawings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco 1978: New Paintings, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York 1976: The Vent Series, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York – Holly Solomon Gallery, New York 1974: Curated by Lawrence Alloway, State University of New York, Stony Brook 1973: Henri Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1972: Paley & Lowe Gallery, New York 1971: Paley & Lowe Gallery, New York 1970: Whitney Museum Art Resource Center, New York

Selected Awards and Grants

2017: American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York 2016: Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in Visual Arts, Guild Hall of East Hampton, NY 2014: United States Artists Oliver Fellow 2012: ''Biennial Award for Contemporary Art'', Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands – ''Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts'', University of Hartford, Hartford, CT 2009: College Art Association, ''Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work'' – Artist of the Year, Rob Pruitt’s ''The First Annual Art Awards'' 2006: The Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award 1997: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant recipient

Public Collections

Corporate Collections

Estee Lauder Co., Inc., New York Island Records, New York JPMorgan Chase, New York Neuberger & Berman Collection, New York The Progressive Corporation, Mayfield Village, Ohio Aspen Re Munich Re Nordea Bank Sparkasse Bank Swiss Re UBS

Museums

AD&A Museum UC Santa Barbara, California American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (promised) Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine Brooklyn Museum, New York Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, California Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio Dallas Museum of Art, Texas (promised) de Young Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, California Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Florida Museum of Modern Art, New York National Academy Museum, New York National Gallery of Art, Washington DC National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Friends of the Corcoran), Washington DC Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California Orlando Museum of Art, Florida Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin Rose Art Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts San Diego Museum of Art, California San Francisco Museum of Art, California Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC (promised) Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York University of California Berkeley Art Museum, California University of Alabama Gallery, Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, Alabama Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands Museum De Pont (De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art), Tilburg, Netherlands Musée de Grenoble (The Museum of Grenoble), France Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany Neues Museum Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany Secession, Vienna, Austria Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium Stiftung Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf, Germany Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany