Mary Heilmann

An in-depth study of Mary Heilmann’s mesmerizing works on paper that explores drawing as a form of daydreaming and memory-making for the influential abstract painter. 

Mary Heilmann’s works on paper are suffused with the same sensibility as her influential abstract paintings, a casual playfulness animating a rigorous attention to form and colour, resulting in joyful, evocative geometries. Their suggestive power reflects Heilmann’s process of what she calls “daydreaming”: a conjuring of the sights, sounds, and events of past and future travels, the cyclical nature of memory informing her return to various motifs across nearly five decades of work. Edited and with an introduction by curator Alexis Lowry, Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 1973–2019 includes an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by painter Ilana Savdie, all together offering a compelling account of this previously underexamined aspect of Heilmann’s practice.

Complementing Heilmann’s 2024 exhibition Daydream Nation at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, Works on Paper, 1973–2019 is edited and introduced by Alexis Lowry, with an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by artist Illana Savdie, together offering a compelling account of Heilmann’s captivating work and its casual meditative power.