Mary Bauermeister’s artistic research is rooted in art, language, science, and spirituality. Her work moved from painting and reliefs toward assemblages and installations that combined natural elements and found materials, optical devices, drawings, and texts. Her practice also drew on serial composition, mathematics, astronomy, and later New Age and geomantic ideas.
The optical devices, especially lenses, were central to Mary’s way of making viewers see differently. They magnified, reversed, doubled, and distorted images, turning the work into an active visual experience rather than a fixed picture. Light was equally important because it created reflections, refractions, and a bright, shifting surface that changed with the viewer’s movement. In her lens boxes, light and optics helped her explore the gap between reality and illusion, while also linking her art to nature, science, and perception.
EXHIBITIONS
2022–2023 Kiel (de), KUNSTHALLE ZU KIEL
2017–2018 Bergisch-Gladbach (de), VILLA ZANDERS
2015 Northampton/MASS (us), SMITH COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART
2004 Cologne (de), MUSEUM LUDWIG
…
1972 Koblenz (de), MITTELRHEIN MUSEUM
1968 New York (us), WHITNEY ANNUAL EXHIBITION
1967 Pittsburgh (us), PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL
1966 New York (us), WHITNEY ANNUAL EXHIBITION
1964 New York (us), WHITNEY ANNUAL EXHIBITION
1964 New York (us), BONINO GALLERY
1962 Amsterdam (de), STEDELIJK MUSEUM
ATELIER Lintgasse 28
1960–1961 Cologne (de), Open Studio
STUDIES
1954–1957 Saarbrücken (de), STATE SCHOOL OF ART AND CRAFT,
Studies with Otto Steinert
1954 Ulm (de), STATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN,
Studies
BIO
2023 Died in Rösrath (de)
1971/1973 Moved back to Germany
1967 Married Karl Heinz Stockhausen
1966–1974 Had four chíldren
1962 Moved to the USA
1934 Born in Frankfurt (de)
See more details
LINK
marybauermeister.org
@marybauermeisterartestate
CREDIT
AUTHOR Bettina Pelz
PUBLISHED 22 JUN 26