Mary White is an American watercolor artist who has gained international recognition for her watercolor paintings of modern realism and portraiture. In 2016, the American Society of Portraits selected Mary White as the holder of the Society's Gold Medal. The Gold Medal is the highest award awarded by the Portrait Society.
Mary teaches watercolors all over the world and is the author of five published non-fiction books about her life, work and the instructions of artists. A biography written about Mary under the title “More Than Similarities,” “The Sustainable Art of Mary White,” written by curator and historian Martha R. Severens, has also been featured in museum exhibitions.
Mary White was born in Cleveland in 1953. She studied at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and then married and settled nearby, managing a gallery with her husband Smith Coleman. In 1991, when she recovered from surgery and a one-year chemotherapy course, White moved to the South Carolina coast in search of a deeper meaning in life. Shortly after their arrival, Mary accidentally met a group of African-American retirees.
These women, most descendants of slaves, gather every Wednesday at the Center for prayer, song, bread, and fellowship. They also make quilts, a long tradition brought from Africa, which they sell to raise money for the church and the poor. Built from timber washed after a shipwreck, the building dates from the years after the Civil War. It was her acquaintance with these women that influenced Mary's life and her paintings, which she had been creating for ten years. On the island of Jones, like on many other sea islands, traces of the Gulla culture, which are still present in the language, music, cuisine, clothing, basket weaving and the creation of the group's blankets, have been preserved.
White was originally a passive observer: she discovered women while searching for people who would model her paintings, and some of them were embarrassed to let her draw them. Now, however, White has become a participant in stringing needles, serving coffee, and sharing his joys and sorrows. She witnessed the death of some: Mariah, Emily, Elizabeth and Myrtle, among others. White succeeded in preserving their similarities and their social activities for posterity in her paintings.
Reflecting on these works, White commented: “A person never decides to become an artist. Rather, at some point, someone discovers that he or she has already been an artist all the time. In the same way, artists never select an item. Instead, our paintings find us. ”
White works in watercolors, an environment closely associated with Charleston, South Carolina, and other realist skaters, known for their portraits of African Americans. She was compared to such southern watercolorists as Alice Ravenel Hager Smith, Hubert Schuptrin, Henry Casselli and Stephen Scott Young. In his latest paintings, White explores the expressive potential of dark tones and the ephemeral nature of steam. Her combination of tightly controlled strokes and friable, wide washes combined with contrasts of light and dark create an intensity that is not usually associated with watercolors. White and her watercolors have recently received national recognition in a series of articles, Watercolor, American Artist, and Artist Magazine.
The publication was prepared on the materials of the site wooarts.com
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