23 Facts About Mavis Pusey

Mavis Iona Pusey was a Jamaican-born American abstract artist.

Mavis Pusey was a printmaker and painter who was well known for her hard-edge, nonrepresentational images.

Mavis Pusey was a leading abstractionist and made works inspired by the constantly changing landscape.

At the age of 9, Mavis Pusey learned how to sew and make dresses from her aunt.

At age 18, Mavis Pusey moved to New York City to pursue a fashion design degree at Traphagen School of Fashion.

Mavis Pusey then enrolled in fine art courses at the Art Students League of New York, an institution that worked with her work schedule and allowed her to financially support herself.

At this institution Mavis Pusey earned a scholarship from the Ford Foundation and was allowed to take courses and study under artists like artists Harry Sternberg and Will Barnet, a painter and printmaker.

Whereas many other tenants willingly left, Mavis Pusey held out, the landlord tried cutting off the electricity to push her out, and eventually paid her to leave.

Mavis Pusey relocated to Orange, Virginia, where she taught painting at the Woodberry Forest School.

In 2011, Mavis Pusey's health had declined and pieces of her art were auctioned off in a bankruptcy proceeding to support her care.

Mavis Pusey was put under the guardianship of the Orange County Department of Social Services.

Mavis Pusey died on April 20,2019, in Falmouth, Virginia, at the age of 90.

In 1968, Mavis Pusey moved to Paris and had her first solo exhibition in Galerie Louis Soulanges in Paris, France.

Mavis Pusey returned to the US and her work was featured in a 1971 major group exhibition titled Contemporary Black Artists in America at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1988, Mavis Pusey moved to Mavis Pusey moved to Orange, Virginia and began teaching at Woodberry Forest School, an all-boys boarding school.

Mavis Pusey's works are held in the permanent collections of the Cochran Collection in LaGrange, Georgia, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Mavis Pusey received awards and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, during her career.

Mavis Pusey drew a lot of her inspiration from the constantly changing landscape of urban construction.

Mavis Pusey gave her works titles like "Broken Construction at Dusk" and "Demolishment".

Mavis Pusey had a great interest in design that led to her use of geometric lines and works like, Solitude, a work she created in 1963.

Mavis Pusey had her first solo exhibition at Gallarie Louis Soulanges in 1968.

Mavis Pusey says that color sets the "tempo" of her work, while the design is the "backbone" of her work.

Mavis Pusey has works in many different collections in museums across the United States, Including:.