Mary Callery

File:JamesDawsonCallery.jpg

Mary Callery was born June 19, 1903, in New York City and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Michel Seuphor,[http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/713068&referer=brief_results The Sculpture of this Century], Publisher: George Braziller, Inc., New York, 1960. page: 246 She was the daughter of Julia Welch and James Dawson Callery, the President of the Diamond National Bank and Chairman of Pittsburgh Railways Company.

Callery studied at the Art Students League of New York (1921–1925) with Edward McCartan and moved to Paris in 1930. From 1930 to 1940, Callery worked in France, where she met and became friends with Pablo Picasso,Mary Callery,[http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/9312035&referer=brief_results Mary Callery Sculpture]. Distributed by Wittenborn and Company, New York, 1961. Page: VI Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Aristide Maillol,{{cite book|last=Welch|first=Frank D.|url=http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exwelphi.html|title=Philip Johnson & Texas|publisher=University of Texas Press|year=2000|isbn=0292791348|edition=1|location=Austin|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050322070808/http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exwelphi.html|archive-date=2005-03-22|url-status=dead}} and other leading artists of the day and collected their art. During this same period, she also developed her talents as a modern sculptor, studying privately under Jacques Loutchansky.Paul Cummings,[http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/18050434&referer=brief_results "Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists"] 1 to 5th edition, St. Martin's Press, New York; St. James Press, London

When Germany occupied Paris during World War II, she returned to the United States with "more Picassos than anyone in America" according to Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art.

After returning to New York, Callery played an instrumental role in the development and growth of ULAE (Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc.). For many years, ULAE primarily published reproductions. It is thought by many that Mary Callery was the first artist to print original work at ULAE.{{Cite web|url=http://thejohnsoncollection.org/mary-callery/|title=Mary Callery|website=The Johnson Collection, LLC|language=en|access-date=2020-03-28}} Callery's first edition with ULAE, Sons of Morning, was completed in 1955. The paper that Callery's second edition, Variations on a Theme of “Callery-Léger”, was printed on was called the “Callery gray” was used by Mrs. Grosman for the studio's first printed labels, and is still the trademark gray ULAE uses today.{{cite web |url=http://www.ulae.com/marycallary/index.aspx |title=Mary Callery Prints at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) |website=www.ulae.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080820022638/http://www.ulae.com/marycallary/index.aspx |archive-date=2008-08-20}}

File:Callery Met Sculpture.jpgArchitect Philip Johnson, whom she had met her in Paris, became a close friend, and he introduced her to major players in the world of business and art in New York, including Nelson and Abby Rockefeller. Wallace Harrison, who along with Johnson, was responsible for the design of Lincoln Center, commissioned Callery to create a sculpture for the top of the proscenium arch at the Metropolitan Opera House. Described as "an untitled ensemble of bronze forms creating a bouquet of sculptured arabesques,"{{cite web|last=The Metropolitan Opera|title=FAQs: The Opera House: "What is the sculpture over the stage?"|url=http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/about/the-opera-house-faqs.aspx|publisher=The Metropolitan Opera|accessdate=17 February 2013}} it is perhaps her best known work. It is most affectionately known by The Metropolitan Opera Company members as "The Car Wreck" and more infrequently as "Spaghetti Spoon in Congress with Plumbers Strap."

She was represented by the prestigious art dealers M. Knoedler & Co. and the Curt Valentin Gallery, and she exhibited in more than twenty noteworthy solo and group exhibitions.{{cite web | url=http://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/knoedler.html | title=Knoedler Gallery Archive | accessdate=17 February 2013 | last=The Getty Research Institute}} She became an acquaintance of Georgia O'Keeffe and in 1945 made a sculpture of O'Keeffe's head.

In 1945, she was invited to join the summer faculty of Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she taught alongside Josef Albers, Robert Motherwell, Lyonel Feininger, and Walter Gropius.

In 1923, she married Frederic R. Coudert Jr., lawyer (and future member of Congress). They had one daughter, Caroline, born in 1926. Mary sought a divorce from Coudert in 1930 and in 1931 married Italian textile industrialist and fine art collector Carlo Frua de Angeli.{{Cite news |last=Shirey |first=David L. |date=1973-04-10 |title=A Picasso Sets Mark, 1.1‐Million |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/10/archives/a-picasso-sets-mark-1lmillion-one-of-the-largest-an-elusive-picture.html |access-date=2023-06-30 |issn=0362-4331 |quote=Although it is believed to have been part of Picasso's personal collection for a number of years as well as that of Daniel‐Henry Kahnweiler, his dealer, its history of ownership was not recorded until 1939. At that time the canvas passed into the hands of Mary Callery, a sculptor and friend of the artist. It was nurchased in 1960 by Frua de' Angeli, a Milanese collector. and subsequently, it is understood, was purchased by the Basel dealer Ernst Beyeler, who sold it to the National Gallery}}{{Cite web |title=Pablo Picasso. Bather. winter 1908-09 {{!}} MoMA |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80357 |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}} This second marriage also ended in divorce. Following the beginning of the Second World War, she carried on a romantic relationship with architect Mies van der Rohe who designed an artist's studio for her in Huntington, on Long Island, New York.

In her later years, Callery maintained studios in New York, Huntington, Long Island, and Paris. She died on February 12, 1977, at the American Hospital of Paris. She is buried in Cadaqués, Spain.

• 1944, 1947, 1950, 1952, 1955: Buchholz Gallery, New York City
• 1946: Arts Club of Chicago
• 1947, 1949, 1950–1952, 1955: Curt Valentin Gallery, New York City
• 1949: Salon du Mai, Paris
• 1951: Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1954: Galerie des Cahiers d'Art
• 1957, 1961, 1965: M. Knoedler & Co., New York City
• 1962: M. Knoedler & Co., Paris
• 1968: C. Holland Gallery, New York

• 1939: Salon des Tuileries, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York City; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
• 1946: The City Art Museum of St. Louis, Missouri
• 1947-52: Painting toward architecture (Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art) at the Wadsworth Atheneum and 24 other venuesHitchcock, Henry-Russell. (1948). Painting toward architecture. [Shows Callery's Water ballet (1947) and Amity (study) (1946), pp. 115-16.] The Miller Company: Meriden, CT. Retrieved January 22, 2017.(August 29, 2016). [https://www.artdesigncafe.com/painting-toward-architecture-miller-company-artworks 'The Painting toward architecture exhibition (1947-52) by the Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art: The artworks']. artdesigncafe. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
• 1949: 3rd Sculpture International at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 1956: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York
• 1958: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Brussels World's Fair
• 2000: The Enduring Figure 1890s-1970s: Sixteen Sculptors from the National Association of Women Artists at Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ (December 12, 1999 – March 12, 2000).(Undated). [http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.56514.html 'Callery, Mary. Amity (1947)']. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, website. Retrieved January 22, 2017.

• Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts(Undated). [http://accessaddison.andover.edu/Obj3674?sid=30705&x=800043 'Mary Callery. (1948). School of fish.'] Addison Gallery of American Art website. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
• The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut
• CIT Corporation
• The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
• The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
• Eastland Shopping Center, Detroit
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC(Undated). [http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?q=Callery+Mary 'Mary Callery (various sculptures)']. Smithsonian Institution website. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
• Indianapolis Museum of Art(Undated). [http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/variations-theme-callery-leger-callery-mary "Mary Callery. (c. 1957). Variations on a theme of Callery-Leger".] Indianapolis Museum of Art website. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
• Laughlin Children's Center, Sewickley, Pennsylvania
• The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
• New York University, New York City
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
• Stevens Institute of Technology, Williams Library, Hoboken, New Jersey(Undated). [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/11/archives/lobbying-in-midtown-manhattan-lobbying-in-midtown-manhattan-on-to.html 'Mary Callery. Moon and Stars.'] New York Times website. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
• Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
• The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
• The Metropolitan Opera House, New York City
• The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Albany, NY

{{Reflist}}

• John I. H. Baur, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/847581&referer=brief_results Revolution and Tradition in modern American Art], Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951
• Ulrich Gertz, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1146814&referer=brief_results Contemporary plastic art], Berlin, Rembrandt-Verlag, 1955
• Carola Giedion-Welcker, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/587087&referer=brief_results Contemporary sculpture, an evolution in volume and space], New York, G. Wittenborn, 1961, ©1960
• Fred Licht, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/179863&referer=brief_results Sculpture, 19th & 20th centuries], Greenwich, Connecticut, New York Graphic Society, 1967
• E.H. Ramsden, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1160594&referer=brief_results Sculpture: theme and variations, towards a contemporary aesthetic], London, Lund, Humphries, 1953
• Herbert Read, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/542720&referer=brief_results A concise history of modern sculpture], New York, Praeger, 1964 {{ISBN|0-19-519941-3}}, {{ISBN|978-0-19-519941-3}}
• Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/70419890&referer=brief_results Sculpture of the twentieth century (exhibition catalogue)], New York: Museum of Modern Art, ©1952
• Michel Seuphor, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/30214788&referer=brief_results The sculpture of the century: dictionary of modern sculpture], Zwemmer, 1960
• Eduard Trier, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1319093&referer=brief_results Form and space; sculpture of the twentieth century], New York, Praeger, 1962
• Philip R. Adams, Mary Callery Sculpture. Distributed by Wittenborn and Company, New York, 1961
• Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062&tab=holdings American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey] (New York School Press, 2003.) {{ISBN|0-9677994-1-4}}

• [http://www.askart.com/askart/c/mary_callery/mary_callery.aspx Mary Callery biography] from askart.com (with image of Acrobats with Birds)
• [https://images.google.com/search?q=%22Mary+Callery%22&q=source%3Alife&biw=1680&bih=886&tbm=isch 'Life Images: Mary Callery']
• [http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/all/listview.aspx?page=1&sort=4&sortdir=desc&keyword=%22Mary%20Callery%22&fp=1&dd1=0&dd2=0&lSort=4&vw=1 'Metropolitan Museum of Art database']
• [http://www.classicaltv.com/the-informer/hidden-center-stage-at-the-met Article on Callery's Metropolitan Opera sculpture]

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Category:1903 births

Category:1977 deaths

Category:Abstract expressionist artists

Category:American modern sculptors

Category:Artists from New York City

Category:Black Mountain College faculty

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:20th-century American women sculptors

Category:Sculptors from New York (state)

Category:American women academics