The Orange County Museum of Art is organizing the first retrospective of work by influential New York-based painter Mary Heilmann. A pioneer of infusing abstract painting with influences from popular culture and craft traditions, Mary Heilman (b. 1940) is one of the most important yet least recognized artists in the United States today. One of the very few female abstract painters of her generation, she has nevertheless maintained a steadfast commitment to producing eccentric, engaging, visceral paintings over a 30-year period. The retrospective will highlight her development of a deceptively simple, even offhand approach to painting-at once asserting ease, complexity, and boundless potentiality-that now permeates contemporary abstraction.

Mary Heilmann will include 75 works from 1972 to the present, along with key earlier works. The exhibition will also examine Heilmann's interest in ceramics, decorative arts, film, and music.

Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and curated by Elizabeth Armstrong, deputy director for programs and chief curator. A major catalogue with texts by Elizabeth Armstrong, Johanna Burton, Dave Hickey, and Al Ruppersberg, will accompany the exhibition. A national tour is planned, ending at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York in 2008.

Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone received major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. and Altria Group, Inc.

Significant funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Official Media sponsor of the Orange County Museum of Art is The Orange County Register. Additional media sponsorship is provided by AT&T Yellow Pages.

May, 2007	Conversation with Mary Heilmann and Friends
	Mary Heilmann