Location: Bowdoin / Mary Hart

Visual Arts

Mary Hart

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art

Contact Information

mhart2@bowdoin.edu
207-725-3630
Art
Visual Arts Center


Spring 2013

  • Drawing I (VART 150B)
  • Printmaking I (VART 170)
  • intermediate Independent Study in Visual Arts (VART 295)


Mary L. Hart - Bowdoin College

Education

  • Master of Fine Arts in Painting, 1994, Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Elaine de Kooning Scholarship in Painting.
  • Byam Shaw School of Art, London, England, 1983-84, Reynolds Scholarship.
  • Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art and English, 1982, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Links

Mary Hart is a painter and printmaker from southern Maine. A former member and president of Peregrine Press, she also started the first printmaking classes at Southern Maine Community College. Born and raised in Connecticut, she moved to Maine in the 1980’s to teach and paint in the Western Mountains region where her family has spent summers for 5 generations. She now lives in Portland with her husband, C. Michael Lewis, and their 16 year old son, Mica. Hart earned her BA in Art and English from Dartmouth College, and her MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College where she was the recipient of the Elaine de Kooning scholarship in painting. Dealing with issues of fertility, damage, struggle and beauty, Hart’s work links the natural world with an inner narrative. Her small, sometimes miniature paintings and prints are intensely focused and detailed. Their larger purpose is the formation of visual associations that describe the artist’s place in the world and her emotional response to it. This work has been exhibited at Aucocisco Gallery in Portland, Maine since 2000. She will be represented in the Maine Women Pioneers III: Dirigo exhibition at the University of New England this May. Her paintings have also been included in exhibitions at the Portland Museum of Art and in solo shows at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College and the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor. Hart’s work is currently in the collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Simmons College, the University of Maine, Southern Maine Community College, Bates College and numerous private collections. She received an Artist’s Resource Trust Grant in 2006, a Good Idea Grant in 2007 and was artist-in-residence at SMCC in 2007-08.




Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions

2011 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME: Shift, oil paintings.
2009 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME: Lexicon, oil paintings.
2006 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME: Mortal Folly, oil paintings.
2004 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME: Incursions, oil paintings.
2003 University of Maine Museum of Art, Zillman Gallery, Bangor, ME: Recent paintings.
2002 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, ME: Field Notes, oil paintings.
2000 Simmons College, The Trustman Art Gallery, Boston, MA: Ephemeral, oil paintings.
1992 Phillips Exeter Academy, The Lamont Gallery, Exeter, NH: Organisms Meet, paintings and drawings.
1989 Dean Velentgas Gallery, Portland, ME, large scale paintings.
1988 University of Maine at Farmington, The Art Gallery: Millsmoke, paintings, drawings and sculptural reliefs.
1988 Dean Velentgas Gallery, Portland, ME, paintings and drawings.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2012 Portes, An international exchange exhibit with Mytilene, Greece, sponsored by the Hellenic Society of Maine and Tetra Projects, showing at Space Gallery in Portland, ME.
2010 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME. Objects of Wonder; Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum of Art.
2010 Portsmouth Museum of Fine Art, Portsmouth, NH. Sacred and Profane; Eye of the Beholder.
2009 Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York, NY: Winter Salon.
2009 Peter Buckland Gallery, New Brunswick, Canada. Across the Border.
2009 Hull's Gallery One Whitney, New Haven, CT. Visiting Artists.
2008 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME: New Natural History.
2007 Whitney Gallery, Portland, ME: Tiny.
2006 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME: New Acquisitions.
2006 Simmons College, Boston, MA: Artist’s Resource Trust Anniversary Exhibit.
2005 Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA: National Juried Exhibition.
2005 Marshall Store Gallery, York, ME: The Art of the Print.
2004 LC Bates Museum, Hinckley, ME: Portraits, Maine Natural History.
2002 Aucocisco/Eastland Gallery, Portland, ME: Peregrine Press Group Show.
2001 University of Minnesota, Weisman Gallery: National Print Biennial.
2000 Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME: Peregrine Press Group Show.
2000 Greenhut Gallery, Portland, ME: Peregrine Press Group Show.
1998 Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME: Peregrine Press Exhibition.
1995 Ames Gallery, Belfast, ME: Maine Industry.
1995 Icon Gallery, Brunswick, ME.
1993 University of Maine, Augusta, ME: Paint.
1993 Icon Gallery, Brunswick, ME.
1991 Dean Velentgas Gallery, Portland, ME: Gallery Artists.
1991 University of Maine, Augusta: Natural Process.
1990 Berkshire Art Association, Pittsfield, MA: Works on Paper.
1988 University of Southern Maine: All Maine Biennial Works on Paper.

  • 2008 NISOD Excellence Award for Teaching, Southern Maine Community College.
  • 2007-08 Good Idea Grant, Maine Arts Commission, Augusta, ME.
  • 2005 Artist’s Resource Trust Grant, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, MA.
  • 1992 Elaine de Kooning Scholarship, Bard College.
  • 1988 Yaddo Fellowship in painting.
  • 1983-84 Reynolds Scholarship for one year post-graduate art study in London, England.
  • 1982 Adelbert Ames Fine Arts Award, Dartmouth College.
  • 1982 Academy of American Poets, Poetry Prize, Dartmouth College.
  • 1981 Xerox Grant for painting.
  • 1982 Marcus Heiman Award for the Arts, Dartmouth College.

  • 2009 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, section intro image, Big Bone painting.
  • 1998 The Rooster Mask by Henry Hart, monotype cover image, University of Illinois Press
  • 2000 The Stonefence Review, monotype cover image, Dartmouth College Pub.
  • 2001 The Keep by Emily Wilson, monotype cover image, University of Iowa Press.
  • 2001-02 Words and Images, monotype, University of Southern Maine Pub.

  • 2.26.2010: Portland Phoenix, Subject Bias: Still Lifes focus on the details at the PMA by Ken Greenleaf
  • April 2010: Maine Home and Design, 60 of Maine's Most Collectible Artists by Susan Grisanti Kelley
  • 12.22.2009: Portland Phoenix, A special Maine feel: Exhibitions to remember from 2009 by Ken Greenleaf
  • September 2009: Yankee Magazine online, Art Without Borders by Edgar Allen Beem.
  • 5.13.2009: Portland Phoenix, Close focus by Ken Greenleaf
  • 9.19.2007: Portland Press Herald, SMCC's artist in residence ready to go by Melanie Creamer
  • Feb/March 2007: Art New England, Spotlight Review, Mary Hart: Mortal Folly by Carl Little
  • 11.19.2006: Maine Sunday Telegram, Coyly Modest to Intense by Philip Isaacson
  • 8.29.2004: Maine Sunday Telegram, A landscapist's flights of fancy by Bob Keyes
  • 9.3.2003: The Bar Harbor Times, Check out these views: Destination Art by Carl LIttle


  • The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME.
  • Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME.
  • University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME.
  • The Trustman Art Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA.
  • The Davistown Museum, Liberty, ME.
  • The Olin Arts Center, Bates College, Lewiston, ME.
  • Xerox Corporation, Stamford, CT.