Mercedes Matter Art

Mercedes Carles Matter (1913 - 2001) Untitled, circa 1937 Pastel on paper 16 x 13 1/2 inches Estate stamped on the reverse Provenance: Estate of the artist Spanierman Gallery, New York Private Collection, Pennsylvania circa 2013 Private Collection, New York, 2021 Mercedes Matter was born in New York in 1913. Her father, the American modernist Arthur B. Carles, had studied with Matisse. Her mother, Mercedes de Cordoba, was a model for Edward Steichen. Ms. Matter grew up in Philadelphia, New York and Europe. She began painting under her father's supervision at age 6, and studied art at Bennett College in Millbrook, N.Y., and then in New York City with Maurice Sterne, Alexander Archipenko and Hans Hofmann. In the late 1930's, she was an original member of the American Abstract Artists organization and worked for the federal Works Progress Administration, assisting Fernand Léger on his mural for the French Line passenger ship company. Léger introduced her to Herbert Matter, the Swiss graphic designer and photographer, whom she married in 1939. The Matters were active in the emerging New York art scene and also traveled frequently to Europe. Their closest friends included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Alexander Calder and Willem de Kooning. They were also close to Alberto Giacometti, who was an important artistic role model for Mrs. Matter and a frequent photographic subject for her husband. Beginning in 1953, Mrs. Matter taught at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), Pratt Institute and New York University. Based on her teaching experiences she wrote an article for Art News in 1963 titled ''What's Wrong with U.S. Art Schools?'' In it, she lamented the phasing out of the extended studio classes required to initiate ''that painfully slow education of the senses,'' which she considered an artist's life work. The article prompted a group of Pratt students to ask her to form a school based on her ideas, which led, in 1964, to the founding of the New York Studio School. Originally in a loft on Broadway, the school gained almost immediate support from the Kaplan Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation. It granted no degrees, had only studio classes and emphasized drawing from life. Its teachers, chosen by the students, included the artists Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Charles Cajori, Louis Finkelstein...

Unsigned, Gifted the artist Charles Cajori by the artist. Accompanied by COA. Mercedes Matter was destined for a life in art. She was the daughter of Mercedes de Cordoba, a former model for Edward Steichen and other members of the Photo-Secession, and Arthur B. Carles, an important early modernist American painter who studied the art of Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse in Paris in the 1910s. This early and persistent exposure to modern art led Matter herself to begin painting at the age of six. In the early 1930s, she studied with the artist Hans Hofmann, like nearly every important American abstract painter of the next generation. This German-born painter is of course famous for teaching the concepts of abstract painting that would define the New York School: the “push-pull” approach to composition and the focus on the picture plane. During the Depression, Matter worked for the Works Progress Administration alongside Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Lee Krasner. The project she and de Kooning collaborated on was directed by Fernand Léger, for whom she served as a translator. In the early 1950s, Mercedes was among the first female members of the Club, an organization of downtown artists that held frequent discussion evenings; she was also a regular at the Cedar Tavern. For Mercedes, “The Club was marvelous. It brought together in one place, at one time, the greatest diversity of artists—as nothing had done before or has since. . . . The end of that marvelous time came when American art became big business...

This powerful Cubist male nude is rendered in long uninterrupted bold black strokes that draw our gaze like a magnet. Mercedes Matter was a female ar...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Mercedes Matter (1913 - 2001) Born in New York in 1913 to famed Philadelphia Modernist, Arthur B. Carles, Mercedes Matter g...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Best known as a painter of abstract still life and founder of the New York Studio School, Mercedes Matter was also a disting...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Mercedes Matter (1913 - 2001) Best known as a painter of abstract still life and founder of the New York Studio School, M...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Mercedes Matter (1913 - 2001) Mercedes Matter, daughter of noted Philidelphia artist Arthur B Carles...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Mercedes Matter (1913 - 2001) Best known as a painter of abstract still life and founder of the New York Studio School, M...

Estate Stamp on Verso Mercedes Matter, daughter of noted Philidelphia artist Arthur B Carles, wife of swiss born photographer and graphic designer Her...