Schoelkopf Gallery in New York City will present “Mary Abbott: To Draw Imagination,” a major retrospective dedicated to the pioneering Abstract Expressionist Mary Abbott (1921–2019). On view from May 9 to June 28, this exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Abbott’s career, presenting over 60 works spanning 1940 to 2002.
Born and raised on New York’s Upper East Side, Abbott studied with George Grosz, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Robert Motherwell, and maintained deep artistic connections with André Breton, Grace Hartigan, Jackson Pollock, Frank O’Hara, Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning.
Her ability to push the boundaries of Abstract Expressionism and painting itself set her apart. She worked across diverse media — including oil, charcoal, pastel, collage, and hand-printed elements — creating works that blend gesture with materiality.
This retrospective will highlight Abbott’s bold exploration of color, form and media, tracing her evolution from early figurative works and Surrealist influences to her later large-scale Abstract Expressionist paintings, collages and experimental works on paper. It will also bring to light Abbott’s role as one of the few women artists deeply engaged in The Club, a members-only artists group dedicated to shaping the Abstract Expressionist movement.
“Mary Abbott’s work was at the forefront of Abstract Expressionism, yet her contributions have long been overshadowed,” says Alana Ricca, managing director of Schoelkopf Gallery. “This exhibition reaffirms her place as a defining voice in post-war American art.”
Alongside Elaine de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, Abbott was one of few women invited to join The Club, a group of artists dedicated to shaping Abstract Expressionism. Her work pushed the boundaries of the Abstract Expressionist movement and painting itself, incorporating diverse materials and tools, such as oil, oil stick, charcoal, pastel, collage, and paw and handprints. Abbott parsed her own work as source material for new works and continually developed her own modes of creative expression throughout her oeuvre and into the early 2000s.
This retrospective will present rarely seen works from the Estate of Mary Abbott, including early Surrealist-influenced works (1950s) that trace Abbott’s transition from modernist training to gestural abstraction, Abstract Expressionist canvases (1950s–1960s) created in dialogue with Pollock, de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, highlighting her synthesis of action painting and automatic drawing techniques, and nature-inspired abstractions (1970s–2000s) that explore Abbott’s deep connection to the Hamptons and the Caribbean, capturing the landscapes that profoundly influenced her palette and compositions.
Abbott exhibited throughout her lifetime in prestigious New York galleries and institutions such as Stable Gallery, Signa Gallery, Kornblee Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Her work has recently gained renewed national and international attention through exhibitions such as “Women of Abstract Expressionism” (2016, Denver Art Museum), “The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945” (2022, Museum Barberini, Germany) and “Action | Gesture | Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940–1970” (2023, Whitechapel Gallery, London). Today, Abbott’s work is held in major museum collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Denver Art Museum; the Parrish Art Museum, and Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins, France.
Schoelkopf Gallery is located at 390 Broadway, New York. Visit schoelkopfgallery.com for details.
Staff Writer on May 3, 2025