Artist Mary Lee Abbott Of Southampton Dies August 23

Artist Mary Lee Abbott of Southampton died on August 23, 2019, at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care on Quiogue. She was 98.

Born July 27, 1921, in New York City, and growing up she spent time there, as well as in Southampton, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. Her father was Henry Livermore Abbott, a decorated submarine commander in World War I and a member of Roosevelt’s war cabinet during World War II. Her mother was Elizabeth Grinnell of Boston, a poet and syndicated columnist with Hearst. They divorced when Ms. Abbott was young. Her great-great-great-grandfather was President John Adams.

Ms. Abbott came out as a debutante at the Colony Club in 1941. Known as a great beauty and with an out-going nature, she soon became the “famous Mary Lee Abbott,” the “it girl” about town. Vogue magazine put her on the cover which launched a modeling career she pursued for several years, appearing on the covers of Charm, Harper’s Bazaar and Mademoiselle. In 1943 she married Lewis Teague, also a painter and son of Walter Dorwin Teague, the industrial designer. Mr. Teauge was in the Army Air Corps and she followed him around the country as his postings changed, though he never deployed overseas. Meanwhile, she was reading Proust and studying Utrillo, Cézanne and Picasso. In 1946, back in New York, she and and her husband separated and she made the life-changing decision to leave the comfort and security of her privileged life, moving to a cold water flat at 88 Tenth St. to pursue her art.

In 1949, she went to the Virgin Islands to obtain her divorce from Mr. Teague and met an acquaintance from Southampton, Tom Clyde, who was likewise getting a divorce. They married in May 1950. Mr. Clyde was a retired investor with chronic back problems and preferred spending winters in the warmth of the Caribbean. In Southampton Abbott rented a large barn on a potato farm belonging to the Jablonski family.

She and MR. Clyde summered on Long Island and wintered in Haiti and St. Croix. It was in the Islands that her work began to flourish. She was enthralled by the mountain landscape and the village markets. She had always felt that she was part of nature and the immersion into the Haitian jungle suited her perfectly.

Painting in the American abstract style, she came of age in New York in the late 1940s and was one of the few women represented in the Abstract Expressionist movement and was a member of the famous artist’s “Club”. She was associated with Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Elaine de Kooning, among many others. She was particularly close to Willem de Kooning from 1948, until his death in 1997.

She has exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions across the country, most recently in “Women of Abstract Expressionism,” organized by the Denver Art Museum in 2016. She was represented by the McCormick Gallery of Chicago.

Survivors said she had a lifelong love and affinity for animals, nature and all living things. She saw beauty in everything and her interests in nature and the power of artistic expression were at the core of her existence. She had an irrepressibly positive outlook on life that was infectious.

She is survived by a half-sister, Elizabeth “Bea” Abbott de Mowbray of London; and a half-brother, Peter Munroe, whose residence is unknown; ang Thomas “Toby” Clyde of Boston. She was predeceased by a brother, William Henry Grafton Abbott.

Burial will be in the famiy plot in Boston. A memorial service is being planned for the fall in Southampton.

Memorial donations may be made to Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation.