Deborah Dancy, also known as Deborah Muirhead (born 1949), is an American painter of large-scale abstractions in oil; she is also a

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...

and mixed media artist. Her work is also known to encompass

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...

. In 1981, she began to teach at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she taught painting for thirty-five years until her retirement in 2017. She has received awards such as a

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim John Simon Guggenheim (December 30, 1867 – November 2, 1941) was an American businessman, politician and philanthropist. Life Born in Philadelphi ...

Fellowship, Women’s Studio Workshop Studio Residency Grant, and a

YADDO Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

fellowship.

Early life and education

Dancy was born in 1949 in

Bessemer, Alabama Bessemer is a southwestern suburb of Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. The population was 26,019 at the 2020 census. It is within the Birmingham- Hoover, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area, of which Jefferson County is the ...

. She was born into an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

family who treasured their heritage and ancestry. Dancy received her BFA from

Illinois Wesleyan University Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockfor ...

in 1973, as well as an MS in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

and MFA in painting from

Illinois State University Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of th ...

in 1976 and 1979, respectively.

Career

Her painting "Seed Travel" appeared in the

Stamford Museum and Nature Center The Stamford Museum & Nature Center, located in Stamford, Connecticut, is an art, history, nature, and agricultural sciences museum. The property covers 118 acres (ca. 48 hectares) beginning about half a mile north of the Merritt Parkway. It was ...

. Dancy taught painting at the University of Connecticut, Storrs for thirty-five years before retiring in 2017. Dancy’s works are in the permanent collections of numerous galleries and academic institutions, some of which include the

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Birmingham Museum of Art The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. It has one of the most extensive collections of artwork in the Southeastern United States, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts repres ...

in Alabama, and the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

. Dancy was also nominated for a Connecticut Children's Book Award for Illustration for ''The Freedom Business'' as an illustrator and co-author. Deborah Dancy was the art director and the illustrator of ''The Freedom Business'', a book by her friend,

Marilyn Nelson Marilyn Nelson (born April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former poet laureate of Connecticut, She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry ...

Public collections

Allen Memorial Art Museum The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art. Overview The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...

, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio *

, Birmingham, Ala. *

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is a museum in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. The museum is privately owned and was established in 1905. The museum acquired the old Cedar Rapids Public Library building after the library moved into a new ...

, Cedar Rapids, Iowa *

Columbia Museum of Art The Columbia Museum of Art is an art museum in the American city of Columbia, South Carolina. History The Columbia Museum of Art was originally in the 1908 private residence of the city's Taylor family. Located on Senate Street in Columbia, ad ...

, Columbia, S.C. *

Davison Art Center Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. *

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

Figge Art Museum The Figge Art Museum is an art museum in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region. The Figge works closely with sever ...

, Davenport, Iowa * Fine Art Museum, Bardo Arts Center, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, N.C. * Fine Arts Museum, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. *

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-st ...

, Grinnell, Iowa *

Hunter Museum of American Art The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, early modernism, re ...

, Chattanooga, Tenn. *

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a $5 million annual budget and approximately 75,000 visitors each year, it is Missouri's first and largest contemporary museum. Founders The core of the museum's perm ...

, Kansas City, Mo. *

Mead Art Museum Mead Art Museum houses the fine art collection of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Opened in 1949, the building is named after architect William Rutherford Mead (class of 1867), of the prestigious architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. ...

, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. *

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is a museum located in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, featuring several art collections. The permanent collection includes examples of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and sculpture, Southern regional art, Ol ...

, Montgomery, Ala. *

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

* Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Penn. * Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind. *

Spencer Museum of Art The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Spencer Museum seeks to "...present its collection as a living archive that motivates object-c ...

, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans. *

United States Embassy The United States has the second most diplomatic missions of any country in the world after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as observer state Vatican City and non-member countries Kosovo a ...

, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Awards and honors

Women's Studio Workshop Women's Studio Workshop (WSW) is a nonprofit visual arts studio and private press offering residencies and educational workshops, located in Rosendale, New York. The workshop was founded in 1974 by Ann Kalmbach, Tatana Kellner, Anita Wetzel, ...

Studio Residency Grant * Banff Creative Residency Program Grant *

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

School of Fine Arts Outstanding Faculty Award * The

Chancellor’s Research Fellowship *

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

Artist and Writers Creative Arts Fellowship * Nexus Press Artist Book Project Residency Award * Visual Studies Press Artist in Residency Award *

Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...

Nominee *

Fellowship *

New England Foundation for the Arts The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six not-for-profit regional arts organizations funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and by private foundations, corporations and ind ...

Regional National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Grant *

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Foundation Nominee * Juror's Merit Award, New American Talent: Laguna Gloria Museum * Connecticut Commission on the Arts Individual Artist Grant *

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Visiting Faculty Fellow *

Fellowship * Connecticut Book Award Illustration Nominee - “The Freedom Business”

Bibliography

*Armstrong, Kathleen, et al. “Children's Literature Reviews: 2008 Poetry Notables.” Language Arts, vol. 86, no. 6, 2009, pp. 468–472. JSTOR *“Book Design, Digital Imaging and Photography.” ''Clarellen'', Clarellen and Cary Graphic Arts Press, New York, 2001 *Danza, Emmie. “Deborah Dancy, Chasing the Light.” ''Gallery Artist Deborah Dancy Reviewed on The Drawing Center Column, "Annotations."'', The Drawing Center, 27 June 2013 *Edwards, Jeff. “‘It’s a Constant Struggle to Keep the ‘Thingness’ at Bay’: An Interview with Deborah Dancy.” ''Artpulse'', 2015 *“Front Matter.” ''African American Review'', vol. 41, no. 3, 2007 * “Flatfile Collection, Queen Bea.” Artspace New Haven. 2016 *King, Leslie. “Gumbo Ya Ya : Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists.” ''Hathi Trust Digital Library'', Midmarch Arts Press, 1995 *McNALLY, OWEN. “Painter Muirhead peers through a history, darkly.” ''Courant.com'', Hartford Courant, 13 Sept. 2018 *Mercer, Valerie J., et al. “Examining Identities.” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. 86, no. 1/4, 2012, pp. 66–87. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43492326. *Mobilio, Albert. “The Bookness of Not-Books: Modern and Contemporary Artists' Books,” ''The Paris Review'', 22 Jun 2017 *Nelson, Marilyn. “The Freedom Business (Ca. 1790).” ''Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom'', edited by James Brewer Stewart. by James O. Horton, University of Massachusetts Press, 2010, pp. 257–258. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vk4gq.16. *Perosino, Bruno. “Marking 35 Years: The Work of Deborah Dancy.” ''The William Benton Museum of Art'', 18 Jul 2017 *Raynor, Vivian. “Spirit in the Wood/Paint.” ''The New York Times'', Sunday, 26 Feb 1989 *Raynor, Vivian, “Stamford Museum.” ''The New York Times'', Sunday: 2 May 1989 *Robert, Kiener. “In Works with a Visceral, Spontaneous Feel, Deborah Dancy Explores the Amorphous Zone between Abstraction and Representation.” ''New England Home Magazine'', *Robin Kahn. ''ROBIN KAHN'', 1 Jan 1970. *Rosoff, Patricia. “Small Vistas, The 10-Year Show at 100 Pearl.” ''Hartford Advocate'', 15 Jul 2004. *Zimmer, William. “ART; A Glimpse of Contemporary Taste.” ''The New York Times'', The New York Times, 25 Feb 1996. *Zimmer, William. “Connecticut Biennial.” ''The New York Times'', 14 Apr 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dancy, Deborah American contemporary painters American women painters African-American women artists American printmakers University of Connecticut faculty 1949 births Living people American women printmakers American women academics African-American painters African-American printmakers 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women