Mary Abbott (Born 1921)

Mary Abbott is an American artist known as a member of the New York School of abstract expressionists in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her abstract and figurative work were also influenced by her time spent in St. Croix and Haiti, where she lived off and on throughout the 1950s.

Abbott was born in New York City, where she attended the Chapin School. Her family lineage traces back to John Adams, the second president of the United States. Her mother, Elizabeth Grinnell, was a poet and syndicated columnist with Hearst newspapers.

After World War II, Abbott joined the “Downtown Group”, which represented a group of artists who lived in lower Manhattan. In 1946, she set up a studio on Tenth Street in Manhattan. In about 1970 Abbott accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and ended up staying for nearly a decade. Eventually she returned to New York where she purchased a loft on West Broadway and a small home in Southampton.

At the age of 96, one of the few living members of the original New York School, she continues to live in the Hamptons and works every day in her studio.

In 2016 Mary was honored to be included in the game-changing exhibition, “WOMEN OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM” organized by the DENVER ART MUSEUM with venues at the Mint Museum and Palm Springs Art Museum.