Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like

Published on the occasion of a major new career retrospective, Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like provides a much-needed, extensive monographic exploration of the art of Marcia Marcus (1928-2025), a strikingly original artist whose contributions have been overlooked. My favorite goddess has always been Athena, both because of her virtues and the implied independence that is a result of her power. -Marcia Marcus Eye-poppingly modern commented the New York Times of Marcia Marcus's art in her obituary, published in April 2025. Days later, a long-scheduled exhibition at New York's Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery presented Marcus's work alongside contemporaries Alice Neel and Sylvia Sleigh-a testament to her place among postwar American figurative painters. Over several decades, Marcus's fiercely original paintings challenged the common understanding of postwar American art. In the 1950s, she rejected abstraction in favor of poised figurative paintings of people, landscapes, and still lifes, suffused with her signature suspenseful quality. A vivid presence in Manhattan's downtown art scene and in Provincetown, she was one of the first women to stage a Happening. Prescient, she painted subjects that peers rarely explored-motherhood; male nudes; female role play-years before such topics gained wider currency. While her work later fell into obscurity, its recent reemergence has revealed Marcus to be an artist working way ahead of her time. This new volume establishes her multifaceted significance: innovative downtown artist, creator of unapologetically assertive self-portraits, and essential forerunner of figurative painting today. AUTHORS: Brandon Brame Fortune is chief curator emerita, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Debra Lennard is an independent scholar and associate curator, Hayward Gallery Touring, London. Melissa Rachleff is clinical professor in the Visual Arts Administration Program at NYU Steinhardt, and curator of Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952 1965, Grey Art Museum, NYU, 2017. SELLING POINTS: . Works like Self-portrait in Black (1959), Frieze: The Porch (1964), and Renoir (1968), show her to be a startlingly modern painter, whose work resonates strongly with that of contemporary portrait painters. . Features contributions by artists with a variety of perspectives on Marcus's art and legacy; including her peers Martha Edelheit, Mimi Gross, and Alex Katz, as well as leading contemporary artist Chantal Joffe. . Monographic survey situates Marcus within an expanded American art history, and comprehensively illustrates her art through generous colour plate reproductions. 100 colour illustrations