Marion Maas
Modernist Hillside Painting by Marion Maas
c. 1980s

About the Item

Marion Maas (American, b. 1930) Untitled, c. 1980s Oil on canvas 21 7/8 x 27 1/2 in. Framed: 23 1/2 x 29 1/4 x 1 in. Signed lower right Landscape, figurative and still life painter in oil and watercolor, printmaker. Maas was born and raised in Rego Park, Queens, Long Island, New York. She attended Newtown High School, where she met her future husband, George B. Maas (1930 – 2006), a photographer who spent his career documenting the activities of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet. Marion Maas studied art at the following institutions: Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY; New York University, New York, NY; The Art Students League, New York, NY. While she maintained studios both on Long Island and in upstate New York during her long career, she had her closest connections with the National Art League, a nonprofit studio space for artists located in Douglaston, Long Island. Maas retired from active painting in 2014. Not long after, her life and work were featured in an article in the Queens Chronicle. While Marion Maas began exhibiting her works on a very regular basis by the 1970s, it was during the 1980s that she began to receive consistently positive reviews for her paintings. At the 1983 group exhibition held at the Birch Hill Gallery on Long Island, noted art reviewer Malcolm Preston noted “… my favorite work in this holiday collection is an oil, Surf by Marion Maas. In style it lies somewhere between John Marin and Willem de Kooning. It is strong in color, very free and spontaneous in handling, yet quite disciplined in its way. I look forward to seeing more of Mass’ work.” A few months later, Preston was again enthusiastic about Maas’s works, this time remarking on her watercolors: “In the kinds of shapes and the way in which she handles color there is some suggestion of early Kandinsky… [the] quasi-abstract work of Arthur Dove…[and a boldness] that reminds us of Charles Burchfield.” Her paintings continued to garner positive reviews through the 1990s. In a group exhibition at the Islip Art Museum in 1996, Maas’s submission Bon-bons III was noted as being: “an exuberance of flowers and foods, along with a hurricane lamp, in the brushy pinks and reds of Matisse, yet it still manages to come across with vigorous originality.” Though there are undoubtedly other exhibitions in which Maas participated, those presently known include the following: Albert Einstein Medical Center, Bronx, NY, 1974 (solo); 380Gallery, New York, NY, 1978 (solo), 1979 (solo), 1981 (solo), 1985 (solo); Hicksville Public Library, Hicksville, NY, 1979, 1986 (solo); Farmingdale Public Library, Farmingdale, NY, 1979, 1986 (solo); Heritage Federal Savings Bank, Oyster Bay, NY, 1979 (solo); Syosset Public Library, Syosset, NY, 1979, 1986 (solo); Woodbury Community Center, Woodbury, NY, 1979 (solo); Bayville Public Library, Bayville, NY, 1980 (solo), 1986 (solo); Aquarelle Club, The North Shore Community Art Center, Plandome, NY, 1981, 1985; Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, 1982-83, 1985-87; Birch Hill Gallery, Locust Valley, NY, 1983; Rockville Center Open, Rockville Center, NY, 1983 (prize); C. W. Post College, Brookville, NY, 1983 (prize); Long Beach Museum, Long Beach, NY, 1983, 1984 (prize), 1985 (prize), 1986; National Art League Exhibition, Douglaston, NY, 1983 (prize), 1985 (prize), 1986 (prize), 2000 (prize), 2001 (prize), 2003; Manhasset Public Library, Manhasset, NY, 1984 (solo), 1986 (solo), 1993; Rockville Center Library, Rockville Center, NY, 1985 (prize); Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, 1985-86; East Williston Town Hall, East Williston, NY, 1985; Huntington Township Art League, Huntington, NY, 1985; Rego Park Public Library, Rego Park, NY, 1986 (solo); Roslyn Public library, Roslyn, NY, 1985 (prize), 1986 (solo); Plainedge Public library, Plainedge, NY, 1986 (solo); Upstairs Art Gallery, Oyster Bay, NY, 1987-88; Sabbeth Art Gallery, Glen Cove, NY, 1987; Discovery Art Gallery, Glen Cove, NY, 1987 (solo), 1989 (solo), 1991-92, 1994 (group & solo), 1995; Xerox Corporation, Woodbury, NY, 1987 (solo); Jacob Javits Federal Plaza, New York, NY, 1987, 1994; Wunsch Arts Center, Glen Cove, NY, 1988 (prize); Bernstein Gallery, Oyster Bay, NY, 1988 (solo); Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, Hempstead, NY, 1988, 1993; Smithtown Arts Council at the Mills Pond House, St. James, NY, 1989; National Association of Women Artists, New York, NY, 1989 (prize), 1991 (prize), 1996, 1998 (prize), 2000; Traveling Painting Exhibition USA (Kirkpatrick Art Center, Oklahoma City; Longview Museum of Art, Longview, TX; Fine Arts Museum of South Mobile, AL; Chattanooga Regional Historical Museum, Chattanooga, TN), 1989-90; Traveling Exhibition to India (Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay; University Gallery, Baroda; Sansher Kendra Museum, Ahmedabad), 1989; Traveling Painting Exhibition USA (Smithtown Township Arts Council, St. James, NY; Goddard Center for Visual Arts, Ardmore, OK; Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX; University Gallery, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN; Richmond Art Museum, Richmond, IN; Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT; Owatonna Arts Center, Owatonna, MN), 1991-92; Bergen Museum of Art and Science, Paramus, NJ, 1991; Unitarian Bay Gallery, Bellport, NY, 1991 (solo); Gallery Emanuel, Great Neck, NY, 1992, 1996-97; Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, New York, NY, 1991 (prize), 1993, 1996, 1997 (twice, prize), 1998 (twice), 1999 (prize), 2000; European-American Bank, Great Neck, NY, 1994 (solo); Sukura Executive Lounge, Japan Airlines, John F. Kennedy international Airport, NY 1994 (solo); Unitarian Gallery, Manhasset, NY, 1994; Great Neck Public Library, Great Neck, NY, 1994 (prize), 1999-2000; New York Institute of Technology, New York, NY, 1995; Spoke Invitational, Huntington, NY, 1995; Gallery North, Setauket, NY, 1995; Nancy Offenhauser Gallery, Amenia, NY, 1996 (solo); Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY, 1996; Discovery Art Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY, 1996; Locust Valley Public Library, Locust Valley, NY, 1996; Traveling Painting Exhibition USA (Indiana University at Kokoma; Anderson Fine Arts Center, Anderson, Indiana; Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, Indiana; Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY; Shenandoah Art Center, Wainsboro, VA; Phillip and Muriel Burman Museum, Collegeville, PA), 1996-97; Visual Art Alliance of Long Island at the Chelsea Center, Muttontown, NY, 1996, 1997 (twice); Maria Feliz Gallery, Jim Thorpe, PA, 1997 (solo); Chelsea Center, New York, NY, 1997-98; Gallery 54, New York, NY, 1998; New World Art Center, New York, NY, 1998-99; Stone Ridge Public Library, Stone Ridge, NY, 1999-02 (solos); Great Neck House, Artists Network of Great Neck, NY, 2000; Broome Street Gallery, New York, NY, 2001; Li Daniels Gallery, Rosendale, NY, 2002-03 (solos); Port Washington Art Council at the Port Washington Public library, Port Washington, NY, 2003 (solo); Ridgewood Art Institute, Ridgewood, NJ, 2003; Pinnacle East Gallery, Babylon, NY, 2003; Indian Head Mountain Gallery, Elka Park, NY, 2003. Additional participation in group exhibitions that are lacking dates occurred at the following: Adelphi University, Garden City, NY (u.d.); Art Advisory Council, Port Washington, NY (u.d.); Custom House at The World Trade Center, New York, NY (u.d.); Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ (u.d.); Five Town Music and Art Foundation, Hewlett, NY (u.d.); Great Neck House, Great Neck, NY (u.d.); Lever House, New York, NY (u.d.); State University at Westbury, NY (u.d.); Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY (u.d.); Queensboro Community College, Queens, NY (u.d.); Saint John’s University Queens, NY (u.d.); Salmagundi Club, New York, NY (u.d.). Additional prizes: Sarah Freeman Memorial Award (1987); Leila Gardir Sawyer Award (1990). Maas’s works are held in the collection of the following public institutions: Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College, Queens, NY. The majority of her works reside in private collections throughout the United States. Bio sourced from the Archives of Ask Art, provided by Geoffrey K. Fleming

Creator:

Marion Maas (1930, American)

Creation Year:

c. 1980s

Dimensions:

Height: 23.5 in (59.69 cm)Width: 29.25 in (74.3 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)

Medium:

Canvas,Oil

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

1980-1989