Mary Sims - by Marina Pacini (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A major, fascinating, vibrantly illustrated retrospective of the painter and printmaker Mary Sims (1940-2004).

The works in this new volume span Sims's entire artistic career: elegant intaglio prints made in the late 1950s; spare, optically flat portraits of isolated figures on monochrome backgrounds from the 1960s and 70s; monumental later-career religious paintings that use Old Testament stories and mythology as fantastical jumping off points; and riotous, and maximalist still lifes from the 1980s and 90s overflowing with flowers, animals, toys, and textiles.

Although based for most of her active career in Arkansas, Sims maintained connections to a variety of art-making centers across the South and Midwest. Born in Jackson, Tennessee, she spent her childhood and youth in Memphis where she took classes at the Memphis Art Academy (later Memphis College of Art). After finishing a BFA at the University of Iowa, she continued her studies in Rome, then completed an MFA at Tulane University in New Orleans. Returning to Memphis in 1968, she got a job teaching painting and printmaking at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). After a short sojourn between 1975 and 1977 in Warrenton, Georgia, Sims and her family moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, an artistic and cultural town in the Ozarks where she lived and painted until her death.

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