Mary Lovelace O'Neal
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Mary Lovelace O'Neal (born February 10, 1942) is an American artist and arts educator. Her work is focused on abstracted mixed-media (primarily painting and printmaking) and
minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
. She is a
Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...
,
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
and retired from teaching in 2006. O'Neal's art has been exhibited widely throughout North America and internationally, with group and solo shows in Italy, France, Chile,
Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
and
Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
. She lives and works in Oakland, California, and maintains a studio in Chile.


Early life and education

Mary Lovelace was born in
Jackson, Mississippi Jackson is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city sits on the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River and is locate ...
, on February 10, 1942. She credits her father for nurturing her love of the arts. During her childhood and adolescence O'Neal's father, Ariel Lovelace, was choir director and professor of music at
Tougaloo College Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It was established in 1869 by ...
and the
University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...
. O'Neal attended
Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...
in Washington, DC, from 1960 to 1964 and studied with
David Driskell David C. Driskell (June 7, 1931 – April 1, 2020) was an American artist, scholar and curator recognized for his work in establishing African-American Art as a distinct field of study. In his lifetime, Driskell was cited as one of the world's ...
,
Lois Mailou Jones Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) was an artist and Teacher, educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the ...
and
James A. Porter James Amos Porter (December 22, 1905 – February 28, 1970) was an African-American art historian, artist and teacher. He is best known for establishing the field of African-American art history and was influential in the Black Arts Movement, ...
, receiving her B.F.A. in 1964. She attended the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...
in Maine during the summer of 1963. During her time at Howard University, O'Neal became active in the Civil Rights Movement and mentored by many influential leaders in the movement, including
Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trini ...
,
Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", an art form populariz ...
and his wife, painter Gwendolyn Lawrence. She worked briefly at the Free Southern Theater (FST) with one of the theatre founders, her first husband John O'Neal. O'Neal continued her fine arts education at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, studying with Aja Junger, Stephen Greene, Leon Golden and Andra Rat. While at Columbia, O'Neal became involved in the Black Art Movement in New York City, which further influenced her work. She received her M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1969.


Career

Mary Lovelace O'Neal's paintings have progressed through different phases over her long career, beginning with loose forms and evolving to more precise patterns. O'Neal has received numerous awards and exhibited in many national and international exhibitions throughout her career. She was invited as resident artist to participate in the international arts festival in
Asilah Asilah () is a fortified town on the northwest tip of the Atlantic coast of Morocco, about south of Tangier. Its ramparts and gateworks remain fully intact. History The town's history dates back to 1500 B.C., when Phoenicians occupied a site ...
,
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
, in 1983. O'Neal curated an exhibition for the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile, "17 Artistas Latino y Afro Americanos en USA" in 1991. Two years later, she received the Artist En France Award sponsored by the French government and Moet & Chandon. In 2005, she was selected to represent Mississippi in the Committees Exhibition at the
National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openi ...
in Washington, D.C. O'Neal started teaching full-time at
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
in 1978. In 1985 she became the first African American artist to receive tenure in the department of art, and then appointed in 1999 as the Chair of the Department of Art Practice until her retirement in 2006. She has taught at several institutions in the U.S. including the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
,
San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...
,
California College of Arts and Crafts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a Private university, private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened ...
,
Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
. And she has taught internationally at
Jorge Tadeo Lozano Jorge Tadeo Lozano de Peralta, Viscount of Pastrana (January 30, 1771 – July 6, 1816) was a Neogranadine (now Colombian) scientist, journalist, and politician who presided over the Constituent College of Cundinamarca and was elected Preside ...
, Bogota, Colombia. In 1984, O'Neal worked on
monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
printmaking with Robert Blackburn at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York City. She enjoyed the process so much and she explored various other printing processes and printed over 200 prints at Blackburn's shop over the years. O’Neal's involvement with civil rights movements, and how they are represented in her art, can not be fully understood without mentioning the influence of
Stokley Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinid ...
(O’Neal's former boyfriend) who coined the terms "
Black Power Black power is a list of political slogans, political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for black people. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used in the United States b ...
" and "
Black Panther A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...
" meaning "Power to the People". O’Neal traces her activism to Stokley, and in an interview with Bomb Magazine, O’Neal recalls how a chance encounter living in Morocco with other printmakers and creatives inspired her famous 1984 series ''Panthers in my Father''’''s Palace'', a likely homage to her experience being a Mississippi native. Akin to O’Neal's experience with abstract layering, she began collecting torn sheets of paper from printmaking studios in the early 1990s, breathing new life into another man's trash- reconstructing waste into experimental collage paintings. Along with Toro, who introduced new mediums and experimented with O’Neal, they displayed their original works ''Troisieme Triennale Mondiale d’Estampes'' at the Musee d’Art Contemporaine de Chemalieres, France from 1994 to 1997.


''Lampblack'' series, 1960s–1970s

O'Neal developed these paintings while earning her MFA at Columbia University. This series of monochromes, made in the late 1960s-early 70s, were monumental and made using ebony pigment that was rubbed into raw unstretched canvas using a chalkboard eraser or her hands. The deep black of the surface could, "absorb and silence the noise of ideology, activate space, and impact the body."


Exhibitions

In February 2020, Mnuchin Gallery held O'Neal's first solo exhibition in New York since 1993, which surveyed over five decades of her work, from the late 1960s through 2000s. The mini retrospective, ''Chasing Down the Image,'' reveals the ways in which O'Neal has engaged abstraction and materiality exuberantly for political ends, marrying experimental black aesthetics with influences of Minimalism. She was engaged with issues taken up by
Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...
,
Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...
, and
Sam Gilliam Sam Gilliam ( ; November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022) was an American abstract Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and Visual arts education, arts educator. Born in Mississippi, and raised in Kentucky, Gilliam spent his entire adult life in ...
while simultaneously having conversations with
Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous b ...
who pushed her to make images of the Black Power movement instead of abstraction. During the 60s and 70s O'Neal's abstraction went against the emphasis placed on figuration by the Black Arts Movement and the
Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California ...
as a means for Black empowerment. O'Neal's work, "insists on the aesthetic integration of experiences and styles once construed to be mutually exclusive." In March 2020, the
Museum of the African Diaspora The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Loc ...
mounted a solo exhibition of O'Neal's ''Whales Fucking'' series from the 1970s. These expressionist abstract landscapes were made in response to her first visit to the Bay Area that decade. They are made using oil paint, glitter and tape. In 2024, O'Neal was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, "Even Better than the Real Thing." She shared three paintings—one from her ''Whales Fucking'' series (1979 – early 1980s), one from her ''Two Deserts, Three Winters'' series (1990s), and one from her newest body of work, ''The Mexico Works'' (2021–23). At the same time, she showcased a solo show of eerie, rhapsodic paintings at Marianne Boesky. Titled, ''HECHO EN MÉXICO—a mano (MADE IN MEXICO—by hand),'' the show included monumental canvases made over the past three years in the artist’s studio in Mérida, Mexico.


Public collections

Her work is in various permanent art collections including the
Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
,
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
,
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 per ...
,
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
, the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
s, the
Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, 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 modern art, ...
, and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago, Chile. Personal life O'Neal dated activist
Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trini ...
, whom she met while attending Howard University in the 1960s. Her first husband was John O'Neal. In 1983, O'Neal met the Chilean painter Patricio Moreno Toro, whom she eventually married.


References


External links


Mary Lovelace O’Neal
on the African American Visual Artists Database {{DEFAULTSORT:ONeal, Mary Lovelace 1942 births Living people African-American women artists Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Howard University alumni People from Oakland, California Artists from Jackson, Mississippi University of California, Berkeley faculty San Francisco Art Institute faculty 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters American women academics African-American painters 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women