Mary Heilmann Dies at 86
Plus: Dean Millien's aluminum-foil animal world, another museum heist in Europe, and the architect leading a new Chinese vernacular.
My favorite installation at MoMA PS1's quinquennial Greater New York was Dean Millien's assemblage of city rats and cats made of aluminum foil. It was impressive, charming, and refreshing. There's a good story behind these silver animals: As a child, Millien’s toys were thrown away, so he made his own from aluminum foil. Today, Bryan Martin visits the self-taught artist's studio in Brooklyn to hear from him about sculpture, disability, and his creative kinship with Marcel Duchamp.
In the news: another week, another museum heist in Europe. This time, thieves walk off with four masterpieces by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina from a museum in Sicily. We also honor beloved abstract painter Mary Heilmann, who passed away last Friday at age 86.
There’s more to read this morning, including Julie Schneider's review of the RISD MFA painting show and John Yau on China's anti-starchitect architect.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
Mary Heilmann, Painter of Irreverent Abstractions, Dies at 86
Mary Heilmann, a pioneering abstract artist who enjoyed a late-career renaissance after achieving global acclaim in her late 60s, died on Long Island on Friday at the age of 86. The Bridgehampton and Manhattan-based painter had suffered complications from a fall, according to a statement from her studio.
Originally a ceramicist, Heilmann shifted course to painting after moving to New York, crafting off-kilter, geometric compositions that put an irreverent spin on hard-edged abstraction. She adopted a technique that allowed neon-bright colors to drip across her canvases in a sly commentary about largely male artists whose self-serious works dominated much of Manhattan’s downtown art scene. Heilmann’s work would later be featured in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum, Dia Beacon, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum Bonn in Germany, and Whitechapel Gallery in London.
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News
- Thieves steal four major paintings by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina in under five minutes in a heist at the Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale in Sicily on Saturday night.
- Cultural strategist Bryan Joseph Lee has been appointed deputy commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs.
From Our Critics
RISD MFA Students Paint Through the Heartbreak
Each painting is like an island awash with yearning, sending out a lighthouse signal into a fractured world. | Julie Schneider
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Full and partial fellowships available for artists and writers
Features
Dean Millien’s Aluminum-Foil Animal World
A highlight of “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1, the artist’s remarkable sculptures made from the humble household material continue a practice he began as a child in Brooklyn. | Bryan Martin
Read MoreThe Architect Shaping a New Chinese Vernacular
Pritzker-winner Wang Shu’s design for the Ningbo Historic Museum reconciles China’s nostalgia with its desire for a shiny, avant-garde future. | John Yau
Read MoreMember Comment
Please note, dear reader, I'm not on the East Coast and may not see all the ramifications of this Philly situation. I speak generally, but perhaps ignorantly in regard to this specific sitch.
—Jozanne Rabyor on "Former Philly UArts Building to Become Affordable Housing for Artists"
From the Archive
Wild, Punk and Slightly Off-Kilter: An Interview with Mary Heilmann
I visited Mary Heilmann recently in her Bridgehampton studio. At the end of our time together, she took a small painting of a wave, and turned it upside-down. It was the perfect gesture to sum up our conversation and the themes of her work — an offhand reminder of its yin-yang quality. | Jennifer Samet
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