MoMA Opens Elizabeth Murray Retrospective

This MoMA exhibition marks a significant posthumous celebration of Elizabeth Murray's work; the artist, who died in 2007, was the fifth woman to be honored with a career retrospective at the museum in 2005. Her innovative practice involved warping, twisting, and knotting her canvases, challenging the traditional two-dimensional space of painting. The exhibition's title, "Painters Progress," is taken from a key 1981 work, one of the first instances of what Murray called her "shattered shapes." This piece, composed of nineteen panels, exemplifies her breakthrough in the 1980s of fragmenting her compositions across multiple canvases to create dynamism and depth. Murray's unique style drew from a wide range of influences, from the paintings of Paul Cézanne and Willem de Kooning to her childhood love of cartoons and comics. This blend of high art and popular culture resulted in works that are both playful and serious, abstract yet evocative of everyday objects like coffee cups and paintbrushes. Born in Chicago in 1940, Murray moved to New York City in 1967, where she became a prominent figure in an art scene largely dominated by Minimalism. She was a dedicated and sought-after instructor, teaching at institutions like Bard College, Yale University, and Princeton University throughout her career. Beyond her own artistic practice, Murray was a champion for female artists. In 1995, she curated an "Artist's Choice" exhibition at MoMA, showcasing the work of over 70 women from the museum's collection, many of whom were rarely exhibited. Her work is included in the collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago. Murray was the recipient of numerous awards, including a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1999.