Maria Alquilar (also known as Barbara Taffet, ''née'' Pincus; May 25, 1928 - June 5, 2014) was an American

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

artist. Her work is featured at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, and collections of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

, and the Downey Museum. She was the founder of the Jennifer Pauls Gallery in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

Biography

Barbara Pincus was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1928. Her father was

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and her mother was

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

. She earned a bachelor of arts in 1955 from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

. Pincus married Frank Taffet in 1949. When Taffet died in 1973, she changed her name to Maria Alquilar. Beginning in the 1980s Alquilar lived in

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

and

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

. Alquilar spent her early life working as both a teacher and a social worker. Her gaze shifted to art when in 1970, she and Colette Garrison opened the Jennifer Pauls Gallery in Old Sacramento. Alquilar focused on expressionistic and figurative imagery and showcased artists such as Anne Gregory,

Ken Little Ken Dawson Little is a modernist San Antonio-based sculptor who was born in Canyon, Texas in 1947. After graduating from Texas Tech University in 1970 with a BFA in painting, he received an MFA from the University of Utah in 1972. There, his ...

, Joan Moment and Mary Warner. She later became the sole owner of the gallery, and took it with her when she moved to Lake of the Pines and then Roseville. She eventually returned to Sacramento, installing the Jennifer Pauls Gallery in a shared space with the Himovitz/Solomon Gallery. In 1986, Alquilar sold the Jennifer Pauls Gallery to focus on her own art. She was well known for using bright, vibrant colors and dreamy imagery. She created over a multitude of mediums. She is most well known for her ceramic murals, many of which can be seen throughout Sacramento. In 2004, she was commissioned by the city of

Livermore, California Livermore (formerly Livermorès, Livermore Ranch, and Nottingham) is a city in Alameda County, California. With a 2020 population of 87,955, Livermore is the most populous city in the Tri-Valley. It is located on the eastern edge of Californ ...

to create a

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

for the city's new public

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

. When the $40,000 mural was unveiled in October 2004, the names of two books and 11 prominent historical figures, such as

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

, were misspelled. She initially refused to fix the mural, citing artistic license. However, she quietly returned to correct the misspellings the following summer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alquilar, Maria 1928 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American painters Hunter College alumni American contemporary painters American muralists 21st-century American ceramists American women ceramists 20th-century American ceramists 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters Artists from New York City American people of Spanish descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent American women muralists