Mary Nomecos

Visual Artist

 

  Artist Biography  


 
 
 
Born in a small town in southern New Jersey, Mary Nomecos began the study of art at Patricia Witt's Barn Studio. There she was introduced to the art community, met and studied with Morris Blackburn and other Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts faculty. In 1971 she was accepted as a full-time student at the Academy where she developed a personal abstract style. She was awarded the prestigious William Cresson Memorial Scholarship enabling her to experience major European collections and graduated in 1975.

In Philadelphia she became a founding member of the group "Old City Arts" a non-profit support network for artists, musicians and dancers living and working among the warehouses and former wholesale businesses near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. She participated in its many outdoor art performances and art collaborations.

Two 3-month artist residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of Taos, New Mexico, in 1983 and again in 1998 helped to define her interest in exploring juxtapositions of color, shape, space, edge and line.

Her professional career has been highlighted by representation at major Philadelphia galleries beginning with the Marion Locks Gallery in 1974, Jessica Berwind Gallery from 1991 and Rosenfeld Gallery from 1995, over a continuous period of forty years with seventeen one-woman exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions throughout the Delaware Valley. In 1979 she was included in a survey show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art entitled "Contemporary Drawing: Philadelphia" curated by Ann Percy and Frank Goodyear. In 1999 she participated in the Department of State Art in Embassies Program Exhibition in Oman. Her work is in the collections of State Museum of Pennsylvania, New Jersey State Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, Federal Reserve Bank, and many corporate collections.

"Mary Nomecos has established herself as a strong original voice in the Philadelphia art community. Her subject matter is color – its emotional impact, its evocativeability, its influential nature. Her work is infused with the power to elicit direct, universal emotions."

— Richard Rosenfeld

"The spatial and color nuances in her canvases are subtle and have made her paintings magnets for other artists"

— Bill Scott, Art in America

  Artist Résumé  


 

Education

4-year Certificate - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
BFA with honors - University of Pennsylvania

Awards

William Cresson Memorial Scholarship for European Travel

Artist-in-Residence

Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico – 1983 and 1998

One-Woman Exhibitions

2013
Four Seasons Hotel, Fountain Restaurant, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (also 2009, 2006, 2003, 2001, 1998 and 1995)
2011
Drawings & Paintings 2006 - 2009, Griesing Law LLC, Philadelphia, PA
2008
Duke Gallery, Community Arts Center, Wallingford, PA
2000
University of the Arts, Eighth Floor Gallery, Philadelphia
1999
Miriam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
1997
Kirby Arts Center Gallery, Lawrenceville, NJ
1992
Jessica Berwind Gallery, Philadelphia
1987
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Peale House Galleries, Philadelphia
1984
Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
1978
Marian Locks Gallery East, Philadelphia
1977
Museum of Art, Widener College, Chester, PA
 

Group Exhibitions (Selected)

2017
"Summer Invitational", Stanek Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2016
"Fluid Lucidity", Liz Price, Mary Nomecos & Gerry Tuten, Cerulean Arts Gallery, Phila. PA
"Dear Fleisher", an Exhibition in Postcard Size, Fleisher Art Memorial, Phila., PA (Also 2014, 2010 and 2006)
2013
"Annual Small Works Show", Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012
"Size Matters: From the Fine Art Collection", New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
2010
"Landscape into Abstraction", Chester Springs Studio, Historic Yellow Springs, PA
"Annual Small Works Show", Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2009
"Gifts of Art to the State Museum of Pennsylvania", Harrisburg, PA
2008
"Abstract Invitational", Delaware County Community College, Media, PA
"Big Bold Beautiful", Selections from the Collection, The State Museum of Pennsylvania
2006
"A Show of Hands", 16th Anniversary Auction to Benefit MANNA, Philadelphia, PA (Also 2002)
2005
"University of Pennsylvania Alumni Exhibition", Kroiz Gallery, University of Pennsylvania
"New Work by Past Artists, 1984 to 2005", Art in City Hall, Philadelphia, PA
2004
Fall, Members’ Juried Exhibition, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
Recipient - Quita Brodhead Memorial Award
2003
Pennsylvania Academy Alumni Works on Paper Invitational, Free Library of Philadelphia
"The Unbroken Circle: A Tribute to Quita Brodhead", Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
2002
"15 Exposures", National Juried Exhibition of Pennsylvania Academy Alumni, Philadelphia, PA
2001
"George Nick Selects Paintings by Artists from VA, PA, NC, and WA", Concord Art Association, Concord, MA
1999
"Pennsylvania Artists in Oman", Art in Embassies Program Exhibition, Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
1996
"Invitational Drawing Exhibition", Smith College, Northampton, MA
1995
"Opening Exhibition", Schaff Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
"Small Works Show", Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1994
"American Abstractions", New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Prince Street Gallery and Friends, New York, NY
1993
"Multiple Dialogues/Expressions in Abstraction", Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia,
"Works by Women Artists", Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
"Biennial '93", Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
1992
"New Acquisitions", New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
"New Abstraction", Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE
1991
Group Show, Jessica Berwind Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990
Faculty Exhibition, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
1989
"Biennial '89", Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
1988
Annual Juried Drawing Exhibition, Beaver College, Glenside, PA
"Works on Paper", Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
1987
"Abstract Art", Art in City Hall Exhibition Series, Philadelphia, PA
"Philadelphia Cares", Auction to benefit people with AIDS
"A Summer Affair", Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY
"Works on Paper", Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
1986
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Annual Fellowship Exhibition
Greater Harrisburg Arts Festival '86, Harrisburg, PA
1985
"Second Generation Showcase", Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Members' Invitational, Figtree Gallery, Fresno, CA
1984
"Ten Philadelphia Area Artists", Villanova University Art Gallery
1982
"Sights and Sounds", Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
"Philadelphia Invitational Painting Exhibition", Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretta, PA (Catalogue published)
1981
Faculty Exhibition, Bucks County Community College, Stover Mill, PA
1980
"Collages and Constructions", Woodmere Art Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1979
"Contemporary Drawings, Philadelphia II", Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (Catalogue published)
1978
"Philadelphia Viewpoint", Albright College, Reading, PA and Gallery of Lancaster County, Lancaster, PA (Catalogue published)
1977
"Artists-in-Residence", Marian Locks Gallery East, Philadelphia, PA
1976
"New Talent Show", Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
 

Collections

Arkansas Arts Center Foundation, Little Rock, Arkansas
Atlantic Richfield Corporation, Philadelphia
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
CIGNA Corporation Museum, Philadelphia
Duane, Morris & Heckscher, Philadelphia
Ernst & Ernst, Philadelphia
European American Bank of Miami, Florida
Federal Reserve Bank, Philadelphia
Fidelity Bank, Philadelphia
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Post & Schell, PC, Attorneys, Philadelphia
Price Waterhouse & Co., Philadelphia
Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia
Pyramid Club, Philadelphia
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
Sovereign Bank, Philadelphia
State Museum of Pennsylvania
United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia
 

Bibliography

Csaszar, Tom. "Mary Nomecos, Alex Kanevsky," The New Art Examiner, May 1995
Csaszar, Tom, "Multiple Dialogues: Expressions in Abstraction," The New Art Examiner, Summer 1993
Donohoe, Victoria. "Two Abstract Artists", Philadelphia Inquirer, October 10, 2008
Newhall, Edith. "Painters for whom lyrical abstraction is very much alive," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 29, 2009
Scott, Bill. "Mary Nomecos at Rosenfeld," Art in America, November 2006
Sozanski, Edward. "In Delaware, a Survey of Philadelphia art," Philadelphia Inquirer, August 6, 1993
Sozanski, Edward. "A New Series of Small Abstract Paintings," Philadelphia Inquirer, February 13, 1992
Sozanski, Edward. "Mary Nomecos and Bill Scott," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 12, 1987
Wasserman, Burt. "In South Jersey," Courier-Post, March 20, 1976
Weaver, A. M., "What's up at the Painted Bride," Art Matters, April 1997
Webber, Kathleen Nicholson, "Home is Where the Art Is," Philadelphia Magazine's Home & Garden, Fall/Winter, 2004 (work reproduced)
Wolanin, Barbara. "Mary Nomecos at Rosenfeld," Art in America, February 1996

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