Elizabeth Murray

Home » Artists » Elizabeth Murray

Biography

Elizabeth Murray was born in Chicago in 1940. She earned a BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. A pioneer in painting, Murray’s distinctively shaped canvases break with the art-historical tradition of illusionistic space in two-dimensions.

Elizabeth Murray

Biography

Elizabeth Murray was born in Chicago in 1940. She earned a BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. A pioneer in painting, Murray’s distinctively shaped canvases break with the art-historical tradition of illusionistic space in two-dimensions. Jutting out from the wall and sculptural in form, Murray’s paintings and watercolors playfully blur the line between the painting as an object and the painting as a space for depicting objects. Her still lifes are reminiscent of paintings by masters such as Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse; however, like Murray’s entire body of work, her paintings rejuvenate old art forms. Breathing life into domestic subject matter, Murray’s paintings often include images of cups, drawers, utensils, chairs, and tables. These familiar objects are matched with cartoonish fingers and floating eyeballs—macabre images that are as nightmarish as they are goofy.

Taken as a whole, Murray’s paintings are abstract compositions rendered in bold colors and multiple layers of paint, but the details of the paintings reveal a fascination with dream states and the psychological underbelly of domestic life. The recipient of many awards, Murray received the Skowhegan Medal in Painting in 1986, the Larry Aldrich Prize in Contemporary Art in 1993, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award in 1999.

Her work is featured in many collections, including Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Elizabeth Murray lived and worked in New York, and died in August 2007.

Exhibitions

2009

Elizabeth Murray, Rosenbaum Contemporary, Boca Raton, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray, Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, USA (solo)

2008

Elizabeth Murray, University Art Gallery, Staller Center for the Arts, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA (solo)

2006

Elizabeth Murray: Paintings 2003–2006, PaceWildenstein, New York, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray: Sweetzer Suite, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (solo)

2004

Elizabeth Murray, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, USA (solo)

2003

Elizabeth Murray Paintings 1999-2003, PaceWildenstein, New York, USA (solo)

2002

Elizabeth Murray Paintings and Works on Paper, Jaffe-Friede & Strauss Galleries, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray: Paintings and Works on Paper, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray: Watercolors, PaceWildenstein, New York, USA (solo)

2001

Elizabeth Murray, Texas Gallery, Houston, USA (solo)

2000

Elizabeth Murray Paintings, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Birmingham, USA (solo)

1999

Elizabeth Murray: works on paper, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray: New Paintings, PaceWildenstein, New York, USA (solo)

1998

Elizabeth Murray: Recent Paintings and Works on Paper, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, USA (solo)
Elizabeth Murray: Works on Paper, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA (solo)

1976

Elizabeth Murray: Recent Paintings, Paula Cooper Gallery. New York, USA (solo)

1975

Jared Sable Gallery, Toronto, Canada (solo)

Videos