Mari Lyons

Mari Blumeau Lyons
Self Portrait with Yellow Head Piece
Born
Mari Blumeau

1935 (1935)
California
DiedApril 3, 2016 (2016-04-04)
New York City, New York
Alma materBard College (B.A., 1957), Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA, 1958)
Occupation(s)Painter and artist
Known forModernist art

Mari Blumeau Lyons (1935-2016) was an American modernist artist, operating primarily in New York, who worked across a wide variety of media and styles.

Early life

Mari was born in 1935[1] and began painting at an early age. As a child, she attended the Anna Head School.[2] By age 13, she was taking courses at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco.[3] When she turned 15, she took a course with Max Beckmann at Mills College. The next summer, Mari studied with Fletcher Martin, an artist with Life Magazine, who was very supportive of her art.[4] She also studied for several months in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, at L'Atelier Fernand Leger, and at the Atelier 17 of painter/printmaker Stanley William Hayter.[3]

Education

Mari Lyons graduated from Bard College in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in art. Her two main art professors were Louis Schanker and Stefan Hirsch.[3] She also received a master’s of fine art (MFA) in painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan[3] in 1958.[4]

Painting career

Mari moved with her husband Nick Lyons to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1958, then to New York City in 1961, where she painted for forty years.[3] Mari painted a wide variety of genres, including landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, and abstracts. Her work was done in the modernist style, though she used several different kinds of mediums as an artist, including watercolor and oil paints.[5] While much of her painting was based around her studios in New York, she also traveled with her husband to Montana and painted landscapes there.[6] She first exhibited her cityscapes in the 1980s and eventually exhibited her art across the United States.[7]

Awards and recognition

Mari had fourteen one-person shows at the First Street Gallery in New York City and several other shows of her work across New York and Michigan.[8] Her work is represented widely in collections such as the “Climate Central Foundation, The Museum of the City of New York, Montana State University Library, Rider University, the DeGolyer Library (SMU), The New York State Museum (in Albany), Montana Museum of Art and Culture (Missoula)” and more.[7] In addition, one her “Montana landscapes traveled to Tunis as part of the Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State”.[7] Several of Mari’s paintings are displayed in Archives and Special Collections at Montana State University.[9]

Later years

Near the end of her life, Nick and Mari took up residence in New York City and Woodstock, New York.[4] She maintained studios in both cities. Mari died on April 3, 2016.[7]

Selected publications illustrated by Mari

  • Lyons, Nick., and Lyons, Mari. Sphinx Mountain and Brown Trout. Apalachicola, FL: Kevin Begos, 1997.
  • Lyons, Nick., and Lyons, Mari. Fishing Stories: A Lifetime of Adventures and Misadventures on Rivers, Lakes, and Seas. 2014.


References

  1. ^ "Mari Lyons | Artist Overview | MutualArt". www.mutualart.com. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  2. ^ "MARI LYONS Obituary (2016) - New York, NY - New York Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  3. ^ a b c d e “Mari Lyons '57 Collection -- 1956-2016.” Bard College Archives. Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative, 2016.
  4. ^ a b c "Mari Lyons: Every Object Rightly Seen". 28 January 2011. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  5. ^ “The Reynolds Collection.” Reynolds Community College, 2018. http://www.reynolds.edu/who_we_are/reynolds_art/default.aspx.
  6. ^ Lawson, Carol (1997-01-01). "He Fishes. She Paints. The Twain Meet". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  7. ^ a b c d "Mari Lyons: Memorial Exhibition – Press Release | FIRST STREET GALLERY". www.firststreetgallery.org. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  8. ^ “Mari Lyons.” A Graceful Rise. Women in Fly Fishing Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Accessed February 8, 2021. http://amff.cavallarogroup.com/biography/mari-lyons.
  9. ^ Scott, Kim Allen. “Historical Note.” Nick Lyons Ephemera Collection, 1932-2005. Montana State University, Special Collections and Archival Informatics, 2011.