Marcia Marcus, a dedicated painter known for her distinct self-portraits, died at 97 on March 27th in New York due to age-related causes. Her daughters, Kate Prendergast and Jane Barrell Yadav, confirmed her death, according to the New York Times.
For much of her life, Marcus was not recognized by the art world. Her early works were presented by several tastemaking galleries in the 1950s and ’60s, but it wasn’t until more recent retrospectives in the final decade of her life that she gained recognition. Notably, her paintings were included in a 2017 exhibition at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery entitled “Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952-1965.” This preceded Eric Firestone Gallery’s solo exhibition for the artist, “Role Play,” which opened in October of that same year.
Born in New York in 1928, Marcus enrolled at New York University’s College of Arts and Science at 15 years old. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1947 and continued her studies at Cooper Union and the Art Students League throughout the 1950s. Around this time, she immersed herself in the downtown art scene and showed at several 10th Street galleries. In 1960, Marcus presented her work at Delancey Street Museum, an alternative venue run by her friend and fellow artist, Red Grooms, out of his loft studio.
In the 1960s, Marcus turned towards portraying her own image, producing representations of herself as various characters such as Athena or Medusa. These works are characterized by their flat colors: figures were often depicted with deadpan expressions and situated in minimalist settings. The Whitney Museum of American Art featured her in two exhibitions in 1960 and 1962: “Young America 1960: Thirty American Painters Under Thirty-Six” and “Forty Artists Under Forty,” respectively.
Later, she presented solo exhibitions at New York venues such as Graham Gallery, ACA Gallery, Zabriskie Gallery, Benton Gallery, and Terry Dintenfass Gallery from the ’60s to the late ’80s. For employment, the artist took up visiting professor jobs at colleges such as Vassar and Rhode Island School of Design before taking a position as a substitute teacher in the New York public school system. Despite little recognition beyond these early achievements, Marcus continued painting throughout the rest of her life.
The appreciation for Marcus’s work has been steadily growing over the last decade. Her paintings will be featured in Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s upcoming exhibition, “The Human Situation,” featuring Marcus alongside Alice Neel and Sylvia Sleigh. The exhibition opens in New York on April 10th.
