Mary Heilmann: Squaring Davis

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis

January 27 – May 7, 2022

Mary Heilmann: Squaring Davis 

Welcoming Mary Heilmann back to Davis, this exhibition brings together the artist’s Northern California oeuvre. Rarely seen ceramics from the mid-1960s and sculptures made just before and after her move to New York are displayed with a group of “Davis Square” paintings, which are an integral part of Heilmann’s mid-late 1970s breakthrough body of work of red, yellow and blue geometric abstractions. These paintings combine the fallible and emotive handwork of ceramic sculpture with the rigor of Modernist color and form. In achieving this blend, Heilmann foregrounds her handwork and the biographical information it contains. As she likes to say, quoting Rod Stewart’s lyrics: “Every picture tells a story.”   

Mary Heilmann (b. 1940, San Francisco) grew up in Southern California. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also studied ceramics, and continued her education for a year at San Francisco State University in 1963. In 1967, she received a Master of Arts degree in ceramics and sculpture from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Heilmann made a weekly trip to UC Davis to study with William T. Wiley. In 1977, she returned to Davis as a visiting artist for two quarters.