MARCIA MARCUS

Role Play: Paintings 1958 - 1973

October 12 - December 2, 2017

ISBN 978-0-9844715-3-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956469

Marcia Marcus
Role Play: Paintings 1958 - 1973

First published in the United States of America

by Eric Firestone Press, 2017

Eric Firestone Press

4 Newtown Lane
East Hampton, NY 11937 USA
tel (631) 604-2386
ericfirestonegallery.com

All artwork © Marcia Marcus

except pg 7: Alex Katz, Marcia, 1959, oil on linen, 49 x 50 in. Collection of the artist. © Alex Katz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
& pg 8: Gustave Courbet, The Artist’s Studio, a real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life Between 1854
and 1855, oil on canvas, 361 x 598 cm

Photograph on page 7, © Luc Demers

Photographs on pages 9 & 12, © Marcia Marcus, courtesy of the studio of Marcia Marcus and Kate Prendergast
Photograph on page 8, © RMN-Grand-Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Gérard Blot / Hervé Lewandowski
Photographs on pages 22 & 57, © Petegorsky / Gipe Photo
Photograph on page 25, © Whitney Museum, NY
Photographs on pages 36 & 38, © Ann Shelbourne
Photograph on page 21, © John Goodrich
All other photographs, © Jenny Gorman

Photographs on pages 6, 11, & 30 appear courtesy of the studio of Marcia Marcus, and Kate Prendergast

Design by Kristina Felix

Printed by
Brilliant Graphics
400 Eagleview Blvd
Exton, PA 19341
 Figure in the Practice Mirror: Marcia Marcus’s Role Play
by Jessica Bell Brown

“People would love to have paintings they don’t

want to look at,” the artist Marcia Marcus once said
provocatively in an interview.1 In this statement, she was
pointing out that it is only through sustained looking that
we achieve a greater understanding of art. The ease of
narrative can foreclose complexities that exist visually.
Marcus’s portraits and figurative paintings of the late 1950s
through the 1970s defy expectations of clear-cut narrative
and meaning. The people in her images will not reveal;
rather, they demand to be contemplated. Alex Katz, Marcia, 1959

Long before Cindy Sherman’s beguiling photographs of herself dressed as different

fictional characters and “types” in various modes of costume, Marcia Marcus painted self-
portraits exploring ideas of identity, representation and selfhood. For years, she herself would be
a perennial focus, whether costumed as Medusa or Athena, embracing her husband, or playing
the role of the artist in the commissioned portraits of her friends and acquaintances. Marcus’s
intentional ubiquity begs the question: how is it that we come to define ourselves? For Marcus,
the answer seems to lie as much within images of herself as those that she paints of others. As
critic Hilton Als reminds us, “Like dancers, none of us gets over that figure we see in the practice
mirror: ourselves.”2

Yoking together Als’ suggestion of a constant, unfinished interrogation of self, and

Marcus’s own insistence of the primacy of our gazes in ascertaining knowledge, we can see a
choreography of making and unmaking, of looking and being looked upon, and of radical self
construction and deconstruction. In Self Portrait with Tights 1959, (p. 19), for example, Marcus
resembles a harlequin or dancer. Save for a mere turn of the face, Marcus’s body, clad in only
a belted turtleneck and tights, appears frozen, as if gesturing forward. Yet, her eyes return the

opposite page: Marcia Marcus on the beach, c. 1959

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glare of the viewer. Marcus’s propensity for modernist flatness in her silhouetted figures was
undoubtedly the influence of Edwin Dickinson, her teacher at the Art Students League of New
York where she trained in 1954. At Cooper Union, in the early 1950s, at the height of Abstract
Expressionism, where her peer was Alex Katz, Marcus turned not to abstraction, but towards
herself as a subject of investigation.

Marcus showed a suite of perplexing portraits like these in the spring of 1959, after she and
fellow artists Red Grooms and Bob Thompson were inaugural collaborators in the experimental
artist-run space Delancey Street Museum, a boxing gym that Grooms had converted into a private
studio and gallery space open to the public in lower Manhattan.3 During the run of the Delancey
Street Museum and concurrent with her painting practice, Marcus went on to collaborate with
Richard Bellamy, Grooms, and Thompson in one of the earliest happenings, In the Garden: A
Ballet, a performance that she organized, incorporating balletic movement and poetry recitations.

Considering how artists imagine

themselves within the history of art, it is no
coincidence that Gustave Courbet’s L’Atelier
du peintre (The Artist’s Studio) (1854-1855)
was a great inspiration to Marcus. In this
19th century French masterpiece, patrons,
painter, model, and Courbet’s own paintings
all share the space of the frieze. Courbet saw
himself as inseparable from the people who
chose to represent. Marcus enjoyed the
Courbet’s unabashed joy of representation, Gustave Courbet, L’Atelier du peintre, 1854, 1855
calling it an “impossible painting” but
“passionate” and “full of intensity”. Take
Frieze: The Porch 1964, (p. 28) where Marcus adapts the allegorical and compositional structure
of Courbet’s L’Atelier. From left, Marcus depicts her friends – literary critic Jill Johnston and painter
Barbara Forst, at center a mature Marcus, draped in an elegant floral cloak, and on the far right,
in juxtaposition, her father and herself as a young girl, reproduced from a family photograph now
at human scale. There is little interaction between the women; instead they are in isolated poses,
each confronting the viewer. Here Marcus positions herself as maestro of a universe that centers
women as arbiters of cultural production. Folding time onto itself, she makes the canvas capacious
enough to hold past and present together.

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 Art and the Family 1966, (p. 44) similarly traverses Marcus’s penchant for making
onlookers hyper-aware of both the fabrication. of the picture and the artist’s desire to materialize
her sphere of everyday life. In this work, Marcus combines collaged elements like a found image
of James Baldwin, a Rene Magritte reproduction, ancient ruins, and gold leaf, with phrases clipped
from newspapers like “family security,” “Daddy,” “Your wife,” “ego,” and “the endless war.” These
words swirl around a depiction of Marcus’s nuclear family. At center Marcus lovingly embraces
her husband Terence. Yet she split the canvas nearly in half for the children to picture themselves,
embellishing the painting with their doodle-like marks and sketches.

Art and the Family coincides with Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking treatise The Feminine
Mystique, published just two years prior in 1964, and the bourgeoning second-wave feminist
movement. Marcus demonstrates a deep and radical awareness of social upheaval, from the
Vietnam war to women’s liberation, to the ways in which gender constructions penetrate how
we come to understand family structure. “She is not painting on the inclines of definition, but
is rather, directly involved,” Valerie Petersen wrote of Marcus in a 1960 review of the Young
Americans show at the Whitney Museum. 4 By picturing herself in the context of her family, and
in the context of her circle of artist and literary peers and friends, a notion of relational self-hood
comes into relief.

Other aspects of identity, like race,

were not above complication for Marcus. While
one could surmise that Marcus’s performative
self-portraits make space for a deconstruction
of white womanhood through her practice
of masquerade and masking, she viewed her
subjects with an empathetic and generous lens,
as seen in lesser known works like her vibrant
portraits of black sitters, families and women
in particular. At a time in the post-civil rights
decade where American society may have
been viewed as staunchly black and white,
she seemed to thrive in the gray areas of life.
Stunning images of friends like Anna 1973, (p. Marcia Marcus, self-portrait with mother and daughter, 1960
62) and Renoir 1968, (p. 49) are a testament to
the expansiveness of her liberal creative community. Renoir, who occasionally babysat for Marcus,
appears “twinned” in a splendid navel orange pants and a patterned crop-top. Marcus captures
Renoir with two starkly different energies, straightforward and vulnerable, and guarded as a

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 reflection in the mirror. With this trope of a split perspective,
Marcus hedges against any reductive consumption of her
subject’s personhood; the mirror here is allegorized as a site
for projection and possibility. Marcus portrayed everyday
people with the same tenderness and dignity as she did her
family and circle of artist friends, as evidenced by an exuberant
portrait of a young African American family, Tyna and Alvin,
and their young baby Marcus created in Provincetown, where
she summered and made works for two decades.5 Though
little is known about her friendship with the family, Marcus
depicted an alternative image of black families that ran counter
Tyna, Alvin, and Baby, 1970/71 to stereotypes of brokenness and poverty plaguing popular
culture and perpetuating cycles of social and economic inequity,
opting instead for a radical ordinariness in her treatment of black bodies. She depicted the
family together, prideful and joyful against a backdrop of the Cape’s familiar cerulean blue sky.

Seemingly, Marcus’s ambition was to deconstruct the ways in which we come to see and
imagine selfhood, pointing us back to its inextricable tie to those around us. Though on occasion
labeled “unrelentingly theatrical,”6 or narcissistic and deadpan, hers was a pursuit of human
interest, the notion that our humanity is tied to not only how we imagine ourselves but how we
come to understand our connection to those around us. Critics did not anticipate a sea change
in which an artist like Marcus could use the facticity of these conflicting roles as a mother, wife,
friend, and citizen as fertile ground for conceptual play, social critique, and a constant desire to
reflect that figure in the practice mirror.

1 As quoted from an archival interview transcript with the artist by a student of Marcus, c. 1980s, received from
Kate Prendergast, September 5, 2017.
2 Hilton Als, White Girls, 2013, McSweeney’s: New York, p49.
3 For a history of the Delancey Street Museum and other artist-run cooperatives and galleries in New York, see by
Melissa Rachleff’s Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 published by New
York, NY: Grey Art Gallery, New York University; Munich ; London; New York, NY: DelMonico Books, an imprint
of Prestel, 2017.
4 “Young Americans Seen and Heard at the Whitney Museum” in Art News, Volume 59 Issue 56, November 1960,
p36.
5 Tyna, Alvin, and Baby, 1970/71, acrylic on canvas.
6 See Phyllis Derfner’s review, “Marcia Marcus at ACA.” Art in America 63, no. 2 (March–April 1975): p89.

opposite page: Marcia Marcus, double exposure photograph of a proto-Happening, Provincetown, 1954

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“A recent reviewer had the perception to realize that my Athena has an implication of sexuality.
I believe even goddesses should be complete women.”

- Marcia Marcus, Art: A Woman’s Sensibility / ed. Miriam Schapiro, 1975

PLATES

Marcia Marcus self-portrait, c. 1953

Medusa, 1958
oil and gold leaf on canvas
50 x 40 inches

14
Self-Portrait in White Dress, 1959
oil, sand, and collage on canvas
60 x 37 inches

16
Self-Portrait with Tights, 1959
oil and collage on canvas
57 1/4 x 40 inches

18
Florentine Landscape, 1961
oil on canvas
78 1/2 x 94 1/2 inches

Collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art

20
 Double Portrait, 1962
oil on two canvases
68 5/16 x 78 1/8 inches

Collection of the Williams College Museum of Art

23
Nancy and Leaves, 1963
oil and acrylic on linen
38 5/8 x 38 1/2 inches

Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art

24
 Jack, 1964
oil on canvas
24 3/4 x 16 inches

27
Frieze: The Porch, 1964
oil and collage on canvas
77 x 115 inches
Marcia Marcus painting Lucas Samaras in Provincetown, 1965
 Lucas in the Dunes, 1965
oil on canvas
53 x 35 inches

Private Collection

33
Nude (Judy), 1965
oil and silver leaf on canvas
23 1/2 x 48 inches

34
 Nude with Mirror, 1965
oil and gold leaf on shaped canvas
47 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches

Private Collection

37
 Chippy Irvine, c. 1965
oil on canvas
20 x 15 inches

Private Collection

39
Hazel, 1966
oil on canvas
50 x 50 inches

40
Emily, 1966
oil on canvas
48 x 25 inches

42
 Art and the Family, 1966
oil and collage on canvas
77 x 132 inches

45
 Henri Zerner, 1967
oil on canvas
30 x 18 inches

47
Renoir, 1968
oil and silver leaf on canvas
71 3/4 x 42 inches

48
Obituary (Bob Thompson), 1968
oil on canvas
16 x 10 inches

Private Collection

50
Family II, 1970
acrylic and gold leaf on canvas
70 x 95 inches
 Tyna, Alvin and Baby, 1970/71
acrylic on canvas
49 3/4 x 40 inches

55
Portrait (Lawrence H. Bloedel), 1971
oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches

Collection of the Williams College Museum of Art

56
Kitty II, 1971
oil on canvas
24 x 10 inches

58
Portrait of Rachel Giese, 1972
oil on canvas
41 x 31 inches

Private Collection

60
 Anna, 1973
oil on canvas
72 1/2 x 30 inches

63
Medusa, 1958 Frieze: The Porch, 1964
oil and gold leaf on canvas oil and collage on canvas
50 x 40 inches 77 x 115 inches

Self-Portrait in White Dress, 1959 Lucas in the Dunes, 1965

oil, sand, and collage on canvas oil on canvas
60 x 37 inches 53 x 35 inches

Self-Portrait with Tights, 1959 Nude (Judy), 1965

oil and collage on canvas oil and silver leaf on canvas
57 1/4 x 40 inches 23 1/2 x 48 inches

Florentine Landscape, 1961 Nude with Mirror, 1965

oil on canvas oil and gold leaf on shaped canvas
78 1/2 x 94 1/2 inches 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches
Neuberger Museum of Art
Purchase College, State University of New York Chippy Irvine, c. 1965
Gift of Roy R. Neuberger 1975.16.28 oil on canvas
20 x 15 inches
Double Portrait, 1962
oil on two canvases Hazel, 1966
68 5/16 x 78 1/8 inches oil on canvas
Williams College Museum of Art 50 x 50 inches
Bequest of Lawrence H. Bloedel, Class of 1923
Emily, 1966
Nancy and Leaves, 1963 oil on canvas
oil and acrylic on linen 48 x 25 inches
38 5/8 x 38 1/2 inches
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Art and the Family, 1966
Purchased with funds oil and collage on canvas
from an anonymous donor 63.43 77 x 132 inches

Jack, 1964 Henri Zerner, 1967

oil on canvas oil on canvas
24 3/4 x 16 inches 30 x 18 inches

64
Renoir, 1968
oil and silver leaf on canvas
71 3/4 x 42 inches

Obituary (Bob Thompson), 1968

oil on canvas
16 x 10 inches

Family II, 1970

acrylic and gold leaf on canvas
70 x 95 inches

Tyna, Alvin and Baby, 1970/71

acrylic on canvas
49 3/4 x 40 inches

Portrait (Lawrence H. Bloedel), 1971

oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches
Williams College Museum of Art
Bequest of Lawrence H. Bloedel, Class of 1923 CHECKLIST
Kitty II, 1971
oil on canvas
24 x 10 inches

Portrait of Rachel Giese, 1972

oil on canvas
41 x 31 inches

Anna, 1973
oil on canvas
72 1/2 x 30 inches

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Eric Firestone Gallery wishes to thank the family of Marcia Marcus, and particularly
Kate Prendergast, daughter of Marcus, for their dedication to Marcus’s work. Kate’s
organization, enthusiasm, and willingness to assist with every aspect of research,
planning, and production has made this exhibition possible.

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 Published on the occasion of the exhibition:

MARCIA MARCUS
Role Play: 1958 - 1973
October 12 - December 2, 2017

Eric Firestone Loft

4 Great Jones Street, #4
New York, NY 10012
tel (917) 324-3386

Eric Firestone Gallery

4 Newtown Lane
East Hampton, NY 11937 USA
tel (631) 604-2386
ericfirestonegallery.com
efg@ericfirestonegallery.com

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