On view March 5 – March 31, 2018
Art reception on March 10th Saturday 6 – 8:30 pm
EBK Gallery [small works].
218 Pearl St.
Hartford, CT
“I am very aware of color theory in my work, and I’ve always thought of myself as a constructivist artist. My favorite quote about my work still is, ‘…that I make the piece look effortless, like great ballet.’ ” – M.M.
McCabe’s collages consist predominantly of drawn images, personal keepsakes, real gold and silver, as well as found objects such as toys, prints, coins, tokens, cards, antiques, talismans, and magic relics. Despite their many elements, the boxes are not random, but rather highly researched fragments of experience curated around a focused theme. Though small in scale, they are colorful, dynamic, and demanding of attention. They are journeys of the imagination – collections of desires, dreams, and fantasies – manifested in a time capsule-like manner that is both personal as well as evocative on a more mysterious, magical level.
click on an image to enlarge or forward through
(with text at bottom of image also)
2005 Boston Globe review (click here)
2001 New York Times Review (click here)
(B. 1947) Maureen McCabe is an internationally recognized and celebrated collagist, known primarily for her playful yet carefully composed box constructions. She honed this style while pursuing an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the early 1970s, after receiving a BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1969.
Following her formal art training, McCabe received a National Endowment for the Arts grant through the Renwick Gallery, as well as a Mellon Grant to conduct research for a new course at Connecticut College, “Women in Modern Art.” She completed residencies at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, NY, Cite des Arts in Paris (sponsored by Darthea Speyer of the Darthea Speyer Gallery), and the Bellagio Study and Conference Center at the Villa Serbelloni (sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1988).
McCabe received the 1997-1998 John S. King Faculty Teaching Award, and was named “Joanne Toor Cummings ‘50 Professor of Studio Art” in 2001 for her work at Connecticut College, where she taught for four decades. Her retirement from teaching in 2011 was marked by an exhibition of her work, Swan Song, at the college’s Cummings Arts Center. It was a celebration and showcase of her ability to create complex narratives that combine popular American culture, ancient mythology, and the folklore of her Irish heritage.
Her oeuvre follows in the tradition of artists such as Joseph Cornell, whose work is often associated with the French Surrealists. Both Cornell and McCabe’s box constructions maintain a poetic and dream-like quality in their loose narratives and carefully posed and floating elements, but also draw directly from the physical, material worlds of their respective eras. This juxtaposition of the otherworldly with the iconic objects of contemporary, everyday life was McCabe’s goal, as she strived to create artwork that was at once familiar and strange, contemporary and timeless.
MAUREEN M. McCABE
Joanne Toor Cummings ’50 Professor Emeritus of Studio Art
Connecticut College, New London (1971-2011)
SELECTED INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
EBK Gallery, Hartford, Conn. 2018
The Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme, Conn., 1995, 2011, 2017
The Parthenon Museum, Nashville, Tenn., 2007-2008
Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Wash., 2006
Vose Galleries, Boston, Mass., 2005
Homer Babbidge Library Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn., 2004
Kouros Gallery, New York City, N.Y., 2001, 2003
ALVA Gallery, New London, Conn. 2000, 2003
Network Gallery, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Pontiac, Mich., 1999
Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, Ill. 1998
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn., 1996
Gallery K, Washington, D.C., 1972, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1995
Sackler Gallery, Stamford Performing Arts Center, Stamford, Conn., 1990
Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York City, N.Y., 1985
Marianne Deson Gallery, Chicago, Ill., 1984
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Conn., 1981
Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, Ill., 1978
Allan Stone Gallery, New York City, NY, 1972, 1975, 1977
The Arts and Crafts Center of Pittsburgh, Pa., 1976
Jorgensen Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn., 1972
State University of New York at Oneonta, N.Y., 1970
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Allan Stone Projects, New York City ,N.Y. Sorcery and Craft, 2017
The Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme, Conn. All Paintings Great and Small, 2015, 2016
Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York City, N.Y. Summer Contemporary, 2014
Hollis Taggart Galleries, Art Wynwood International Contemporary Art Fair, Miami, Fla. 2014
Allan Stone Gallery, New York City, N.Y. 1974, 1978, 1979, 2000, 2010
Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York City, N.Y. The Image in the Box, 2008-2009
American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington D.C., Remembering Marc and Komei, 2006
Kouros Gallery, Contemporary Art Fair, Greece, Art Athina, 2003
Vose Galleries, Boston, Mass., Realism Now, 2003
9th Int’l Exhibition of Contemporary Collage, (ARTCOLLE), Paris/Sergines, France 2002
Barry Friedman, Ltd., Navy Pier, Chicago, Ill., ART CHICAGO, 1998
Boston University, Mass., Fuller Building Gallery, Metaphor for Ireland, 1997
Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, Vt., Excavating Culture, 1996
Babcock Galleries, New York City, N.Y., The Peaceable Kingdom: Animals in Art, 1994
Lumina Gallery, Taos, N.M., 1993
Henry Deford III Gallery, Citicorp at Court Square, Long Island City, N.Y., Joseph Cornell: Revisited, 1992
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Conn., Resonance, 1992
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn., Dreamscapes, 1988, Matters of the Heart, 1992
University of Connecticut, Atrium Gallery, Storrs, Conn., Spiritual Cargo, 1991
Old State House, Hartford, Conn., Vision and Imagination, 1990
Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Conn., 1989 Connecticut Biennial
Traveling Exhibition: New England Now — Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University; Bowdoin College Museum of Art; Currier Gallery of Art; Decordova and Dana Museum; Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont; New Britain Museum of Art, 1988-89
Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Hartford, Conn., Chosen Two, 1985
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico, Imagenes en Cajas, 1985
Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C., Poetic Objects, (curated by Walter Hopps) 1983
Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York City, N.Y., Area Code 914-203, 1982-83
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., Animal Images, 1981
John Koller Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wis., The Unpainted Portrait, 1979
Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France, 1978
Traveling Exhibition: Connecticut Painting Drawing and Sculpture — Connecticut College, New London; New Britain Museum of American Art; Carlson Art Gallery, University of Bridgeport, Conn., 1978
Traveling Exhibition under Smithsonian Institution Auspices 1978-80: Artists’ Postcard Show — 24 museums including SoHo Drawing Center, 1977-79
Traveling Exhibition: Object as Poet — Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York City, N.Y. and Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1977
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., Selected Connecticut Artists, 1973
SELECTED GUEST ARTIST
The Parthenon Museum, Nashville, Tenn., lecture, 2007
Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Wash., lecture, 2006
Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, Vt., lecture, 1996
American Irish Historical Society, New York City, N.Y., lecture, 1994
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, Visiting Artist, 1990
U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria, lecture, 1998
University of Delaware, 1976, 1980, 1984
Smithsonian, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C., Poet/Artist Collaboration, 1977
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I.: Visiting Sculpture Critic, 1976;
Careers for Women in the Arts, 1975;
What Happens to Painters? 1974
GRANTS AND AWARDS
Named the Joanne Toor Cummings ’50 Professor of Studio Art, Connecticut College, 2001
John S. King Faculty Teaching Award in recognition of teaching excellence, Connecticut College, 1997-98
Connecticut Artists’ Collection — two works selected by The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, 1992
Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant, 1980
Mellon Grant for Women’s Studies, preparation for course: Women in Modern Art, 1976
RESIDENCIES
American Academy in Rome, Visiting Artist, 2006
The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, County Monaghan, Ireland, 1995
The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H., Fall 1988
Artist-in-Residence, The Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy, 1988
The Fabric Workshop Residency, Philadelphia, Pa., 1978
Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, Residency, sponsored by Darthea Speyer Galerie, Paris, France, 1977-78
Haystack, Deer Isle, Maine, residency sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts for Artist and Poet Collaboration, 1976. Resulting works were shown at the Renwick Gallery/Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., The Object as Poet, December 1976 to June 1977 and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York City, 1977
Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 1975
SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Jeff and Betsey Cooley, Old Lyme, Conn.
David and Mary Dangremond, Old Lyme Conn. David and Linda Frankel, Miami, Fla.
Barry Friedman, New York, N.Y. Alva Greenberg, New York, N.Y. Malcoln Knapp, New York, N.Y.
Robert and Arlene Kogod, Washington, D.C. Michael and Bernadette Monroe, Bellevue, Wash. Beau R. Ott, Philadelphia, Penn.
Christopher and Rebecca Steiner, Old Lyme, Conn. Walter and Linda Wick, Miami, Fla.
INCLUDED IN:
Dictionary of International Biography World Who’s Who of Women
Who’s Who in American Art
EDUCATION
MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1971 — Booth Scholarship BFA Rhode Island School of Design, 1969 — Ford Scholarship