Mary Faulconer
BIOGRAPHY:
Mary Faulconer studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art where she taught in the Design Laboratory of the Museum School. She has in addition, served as Art Director of Mademoiselle Magazine and Harpers Bazaar. Her free lance work has appeared in Fortune, House and Garden, Life, Look, Seventeen, Town and Country and Vogue magazines.
Among her credits is a painting reproduced for UNICEF in 1972 and a commission to design six postage stamps for the United States. This issue, the Rose stamp, was the first United States multi-color stamp in booklet form. The Rose booklet design features both a red and apricot rose and is unique in that it is not a commemorative stamp but, in postal terms, is a special issue stamp. Unlike a commemorative stamp, which is available for only 2 months, the sale period for the Rose booklet will be at least one year. It was issued July 11, 1978 in Shreveport, Louisiana the home of the American Rose Society.
Mary Faulconer was an ideal candidate for designing a postage stamp. Characteristically, though her work is small scale and detailed, she captures the full beauty and charm of her subject. Postage stamps, match boxes, playing cards, and antique tins have all been faithfully reproduced life-size by Mary in her trompe l'oeil technique. Mary is an exquisite and exacting artist whose paintings are physically and emotionally precise and self-sufficient. She imparts to a simple vase of flowers on a table all the mystery, joy and charm that recalls the delicacy of a poem.
Mary Faulconer is an artist of real elegance in the finest American tradition. She combines early american primitivism, trompel'oeilandamagical super-realism, which in spite of her careful attention to detail, remains fresh and charming and not at all obsessive or rigid. She authentically render the softness of pansies, the delicate tint of egg shells, images which evokes happy nostalgia for idyllic springs and summers. Mary's work is luminous and peaceful, a world where a casual arrangement of lacy dried leaves or flowers touch upon perfection. Her paintings are clean and flawless gems, delicately and brilliantly realized.
Mrs. Faulconer’s paintings are in museums and in the private collections of Elizabeth Arden, Mrs. George Baker, Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon, Mr. Cole Porter, Mr. & Mrs. John Hay Whitney, Mr. Jean Schlumberger, Mrs. Richard Rheem, Mrs. Gilbert Miller, Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, the Duke and Dushess of Windsor (who also presented a painting to H.R.H. Queen Mary of England) and many other collectors.
Mary Faulconer’s painting medium is gouache on gesso and on paper. Her work has been exhibited at the Alex Iolas Gallery, NYC, '55, '58 & '61; Philadelphia Art Alliance, '62; Bodley Gallery, NYC, '64, '66 , '69, '72 & '82; Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Nashville, '67; De Mers Gallery, Hilton Head, S.C., '71–'72; and A.C.A. Galleries, NYC, ë84
Her recent exhibits have been at the Schiller-Wapner Galleries, NYC. In 1985 there, she exhibited an historic collection of Tarot and antique playing cards designed and executed in needlepoint. (The majority of these can be seen at the Intercontinental Hotel, NYC — formerly the Barclay Hotel.) In 1986, her ìVoyages and Still Lifesî Collection was shown at the same gallery.
Mrs. Faulconer’s most recent, innovative collection, ìWorks on Paper Ö Famous Interiors and Exteriorsî at the Schiller-Wapner Galleries, is a large collection (over 50) of miniature architectural exterior and vignette interiors. These miniatures are her unique interpretations of intimate interiors and exteriors of homes and gardens created by famous artists, noted celebrities and of historic and landmark houses throughout the Eastern United States.
Mary Faulconer, as noted in ìWhoís Who in American Art, worked in New York City at her studio in Beekman Place.