MARY MITO
About
Mary Neumuth Mito was born in 1944 in New Canaan CT and studied art at the Silvermine College of Art before enrolling at the School of Visual Arts in New York where she later taught drawing for several years. Mito has had a long artistic career starting well before her first solo exhibition at the O.K. Harris Gallery in 1979.
Mito’s early training came at a time when Earth Art, Performance Art, Feminist Art, Minimalism, Photorealism and New Subjectivity art were all at the forefront of the art world, and it could be said that aspects of all of these movements have influenced her work. Honing in on rather mundane subjects that most people overlook such as dirt, rocks, weeds and muddy water, Mito elevates these subjects, imbuing them with a psychological power much like the works of the German Romantic painters of the early nineteenth century who placed human figures diminished in scale amidst vast landscapes as a means to convey an emotional response to the natural world.
Like the Romanticists, there is a focus on human interaction with the natural world in Mito’s work, and while her focus on the natural world is on small details rendered on a large scale, the viewer is left to discover the human interaction which is present in a performative action the artist has memorialized in paint or pencil such as her raking earth, smearing tire tracks in the ground with her hand, digging a hole, filling in a hole or throwing pebbles into the water. In other instances, it is an act or action that she has witnessed such as dog tracks in the snow, chicken scratches in the dirt, animal burrows in the earth, or a wave rolling in. In all of these instances she has participated as a witness, suggesting a notion of “self” but in a somewhat invisible manner, not unlike what many women artists have faced for centuries in a male dominated world.
Many of these same themes were present in the work of Mito’s contemporary, the late Cuban-American performance artist, Ana Mendieta whose work focused on feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place and belonging. Both Mito and Mendita exhibited their work at the A.I.R. Gallery in New York in the 1970’s.
Several years ago, Mito created a series of collages which gave her the freedom to express her ideas in a very quick manner, and in a spurt of restless creative energy during this Pandemic year, she has started to translate some of these images into haunting, large-scale paintings that can be seen not only as an encapsulation of her art of the past five decades, but as prescient reminders to many of the world events of 2020.
Mito’s works have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout her career and her works are included in several private and public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Speed Art Museum in Kentucky, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Oklahoma, and the Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina.
Featured Work
Multiple Panel Work
EXHIBITIONS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1979
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Mary Neumuth. O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1981
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Mary Neumuth: Paintings. O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
1984
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Edward Hopper House Gallery, Nyack, NY
1994
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Mary Neumuth: Paintings and Drawings. Horwitch Lew Allen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1998
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No One Spoke; Paintings By Mary Neumuth Mito. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2001
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As Is: Drawings by Mary Neumuth Mito. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2002
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Mary Neumuth Mito. Art Musuem of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX
2004
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Mary Neumuth Mito. Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, NY
2005
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Mary Neumuth-Mito: Rape of an Angel; Paintings and Drawings. O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY
2007
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Passage to China. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2014
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Mary Mito: Meditations on Nature. Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX
2015
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Mary Mito: Collages. Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2019
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Sifts, Restores. Downs & Ross, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1975
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Invitational. A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY
1979
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Jorgenson Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
1980
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O.K. Harris Gallery and Pace Gallery, Philadelphia
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Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Ashland, VA
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Center for the Arts. Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania
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Contemporary Landscapes. Osuna Gallery, Washington, DC
1981
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Root Art Center, Clinton NJ
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Contemporary American Landscapes. Taft Museum, Cincinnati, OH
1990
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Jan Weiss Gallery. New York, NY
1991
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Black and White. Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY
1992
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Mysterious Presence. Jan Weiss Gallery, New York, NY
1996-8
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Rediscovering the Landscapes of the Americas. Organized by Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM – traveling exhibition
1998
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Observed Fact: New Realism. Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX
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Women, Women, Women: Artists, Icons, Objects. Greenville County Museum of Art Greenville, SC
1999
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Realism, Photo Realism, and Super Realism. Harwood Foundtation of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
2000
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Legacy III: Contemporary women Artists. Brevard Museum, Melbourne, FL
2003
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Representing Representation VI. Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY
2004
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Selections from Gallery Artists. Gerald Peters Gallery, NM
2005
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Good HeArt. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2008
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SITE Unseen 5, Benefit for SITE Santa Fe’s 7th Biennial. Santa Fe, NM
2014
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New Editions Summer 2014. Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM2016
2016
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An Idle Visitation. Organized by AND NOW, Hester, and Tomorrow, Santa Fe
2019
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The Armory Show 2019. with Downs & Ross, New York, NY
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
University of Arizona, Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
Marianne Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Mobil Oil Corporation
Citibank Corporation
AT&T
Larry Gagosian
BOOKS
Campbell, Suzan & Deats, Suzanne. Landscapes of New Mexico: Paintings Of The Land Of Enchantment. Fresco Fine Art Publications, LLC, Albuquerque, NM, 2006,
Reed, Arden. Mary Mito: Collages Paintings Drawings. Fresco Fine Art Publicatinos, LLC, Albuquerque, NM, 2012
Reed, Arden. Mary Mito: Collages. Fresco Fine Art Publicatinos, LLC, Albuquerque, NM, 2015
CATALOGUES
Dreishpoon, Douglas. As Is: Drawings By Mary Neumuth Mito. August 3 – September 1, 2001. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Hanna, Katherine. Contemporary American Landscape. September 18 – November 15, 1981. The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ross, Alex. Passage To China. July 20 – August 18, 2007. Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Styron, et al. Women Women Women: Artists, Objects, Icons. November 12 – April 26, 1998. Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina
Wilson, MaLin. No One Spoke. October 23- November 14, 1998, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
BROCHURES
As Is: Drawings by Mary Neumuth Mito, Gerald Peters Gallery & Pillsbury & Peters Fine Art. Summer 2001
ARTICLES
Armitage, Diane. Mary Neumuth: No One Spoke. THE Magazine, December 1998
Berkovitch, Ellen, Artist Replicates Nature’s Obsessive Creativeness. Journal North, Oct. 29, 1998
Clemmer, David. Mary Neumuth. THE Magazine, December 1994
Cline, Lynn. Neumuth Gazes At The World Around Her Feet. Pasatiempo, October 1998
Collins, Tom. Documents of A Fleeting Moment. Santa Fe Reporter, November 1994
Findsen, Owen, The Landscape Returns to Art. The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 27, 1981
Foreman, B.J. Beauty First Billing. The Cincinnati Post, October 1, 1981
Harball, Elizabeth. Best Books 2012. THE Magazine, December-January 2013-2013.
Lhamo, Rinchen. Mary Mito Passage To China. THE Magazine, September 2007