I purchased a painting from an ad on Facebook. It was was…

Hello,

My name is ***** ***** I’m a moderator for this topic! My goal is to help you get the best out of JustAnswer.

Experts are much more likely to answer your question quickly if they can see pictures of your items.

Please attach pictures using the information here: https://www.justanswer.com/help/how-do-i-send-photo-or-file-expert

Thank you for your help and patience,

YAMUNA- Moderator

Hello my name is***** am a certified appraiser and would be happy to help you. I will look her current value up for your painting and here is her Biography.

The following biographical information has been provided by Ira S. Mark, the artist’s son, Ira S. Mark.

Narrative Biography
Phyllis Mark was an American artist of the second half of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty-first (Birth, January 20, 1921, in New York, NY; Death, May 23, 2004, New York, NY). She was a major proponent of kinetic sculpture. She rotated indoor works on motors. Her outdoor works moved by wind or water.

Mark had an enduring interest in light. She first generated light within the work itself, using small electric bulbs. Later she began to work in polished metal, creating interactions between the work, its reflections, and cast shadows. She was also an early proponent of sculptural editions, first in small scale, her Sculpture-to-wear, art conceived as jewelry, later in her larger kinetic works.

Mark explored concepts in her art alongside pure abstraction throughout her career. An important example in two-dimensions is a form of picture writing that she termed Color Alphabet. In her sculpture, conceptual interests, always implicit, became increasingly explicit in late career. In late career she executed a number of large scale works, photographed the work and its intend site, and “sited” the work in photo-montage.

For a concise introduction to Mark’s artistic interests in her own words, see her statement on page 3 of the catalog Phyllis Mark, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN, 1979. See also the following published vitas: Fort Wayne Museum catalog pg. 14; exhibition catalog, Refractions, Reflections, Fort Lauderdale Museum of the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 1977; and Who’s Who in American Art, R. R. Bowker Publishing, New York, NY, beginning 1973.

LIFE AND CAREER
Mark was born in New York City and centered her career there. She studied with Grace Greenwood, a “New Deal” social realist painter active in WPA, and with Seymour Lipton, a major proponent of abstract expressionist sculpture, both at The New School.

Early Career
Mark began her career as an expressionist figural painter in the early 1950s. Later in that decade and in the early ’60s, her painting became increasingly abstract, tending to shapes that evoke plant and primitive life forms, so-called Bio-morphism. The evolution of Mark’s painting in these years can be traced in three one-woman exhibitions in her native New York City, the first at the Verna Wear Gallery, 1957, the second and third at the Kaymar Gallery, 1962 and 1964.

Wood Relief Sculpture
In the mid ‘60s Mark first experimented with wood relief. Most of these reliefs had a raised bio-morphic black shape against a white background. Some hid small lights behind the relief, others added visible lights. The raised relief and added lights transformed the shadows of the work from an incidental and passive element of gallery installation to a manipulated element of composition: form and shadow. The artist exhibited works of this stage in a one-woman show at the ***** ***** Gallery, Manhattan, NY, in 1966.

Works from this stage of Mark’s career are in the collections of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Inv. 66.069 (Elongated White Oval, 1966) and Syracuse University Art Galleries, Inv. 1967.41 (Orange Constellation with Lights, 1966).

Anodized Aluminum
Soon after her 1966 show, Mark began working in polished, anodized aluminum. These sculptures continued her bio-morphic interests, but the polished surfaces of the sculpture created shadows and reflected light: form, shadow, reflection. Fabricators produced these works to the artist’s design and under her supervision. Some were unique works, but Mark began at this time to commission numbered editions of her designs, “multiples.”

Suspended and Table-Top Kinetic Sculpture
Mark’s earliest kinetic sculptures were fixed forms moved in rotation on their bases. In later works she suspended central planer forms within one or more circular, oval or rectangular frames: the interior elements moved within their rotating frames.

Sculpture with moving elements, kinetic sculpture, remained a guiding interest of this artist through the rest of her career. Her first aluminum and early kinetic sculptures were exhibited at ***** ***** Gallery in 1968.

Sculpture-to-wear
In the early 1970s Mark conceived the idea to execute her designs in miniature as jewelry, her Sculpture-to-wear. A major turning point of her career came in 1972, when the Museum of Modern Art commissioned an edition of 100 Sculpture-to-wear, individually numbered, 23-karat gold-plated aluminum, for sale in its gift shop. This edition, entitled Kinetic Circle, was followed by a second MoMA gift shop commission, Quadrille, again an edition of 100 in gold-plate.

In agreement with MoMA, the artist manufactured these same designs in aluminum, un-plated, in numbered editions of 250, for sale elsewhere. These same years saw the artist initiate other Sculpture-to-wear designs, editions of 100/250, including Seahorse Oval, Aztec Memory, Arabesque, Enclosed Triangles, some ten designs in all. These were for sale at her one-woman exhibitions, and were on permanent display at a number of galleries, including Gimpel & Weizenhoffer in Manhatten; Fontana Gallery, Narbeth, PA; Gallerie 99, Bay Harbor Islands, FL; Images Gallery, Toledo, OH; and Rubiner Gallery, Royal Oak, MI.

Color Alphabet
Alongside her kinetic sculpture, Mark continued her early work in two dimensions. Important among these works was a series of visual poems executed in a pictorial alphabet. She created this visual language by pairing small, simple, visually distinct compositions, one for each letter of the alphabet, and transcribing poems and short phrases to their visual equivalent. The sequence of forms is difficult, nearly impossible to decode fluently back to the original (to guide the viewer she usually included the original text to one side or in the margins of the composition), but the repetition of common pronouns and prepositions is visually evident, and common letter groupings and patterns of the language introduce visual rhythms that structure the whole.

An example from this series, executed in gouache, is in the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Inv. 1978.129.165; a thumbnail and catalog description are published in Linda Crocker Simmons, American Drawings, Watercolors, Pastels and Collages in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1983, pg. 240.

In 1973, Mark issued a Color Alphabet poem in an edition, her Color Meditations. The paper this edition is printed on, wide and narrow, is accordion-folded between hard covers. The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MI, has one from this edition:

Outdoor Kinetic Sculpture
The earliest of Mark’s large metal sculptures, although not explicitly conceived for outdoor setting, were suitable for the outdoors, and several were so exhibited at the Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY, first in 1974. Soon after, Mark began to actively explore the kinetic potential of outdoor siting. She completed and sited the earliest of these works, Wind Intervals, under the auspices of a non-profit artists’ collaborative active at that time, Artists Representing Environmental Arts (A.R.E.A.), and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Wind Intervals stood on New York’s Roosevelt Island from 1976-1983. A review of this installation by Grace Glueck appeared in The New York Times on July 14, 1978:

A late example of her large outdoor kinetic sculptures, Pyramid Butterfly, 1985, stood in Robert Moses Plaza, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, from spring 1985 to fall 1986. Pyramid Butterfly, and several other of the artist’s works that were then sited and on view, were discussed by Phyllis Braff, a New York Times arts critic, writing in Arts Magazine, May 1985, pg. 15.

Late Career
Toward 1989 and through the ‘90s, Mark executed a series of large-scale sculptures, photographed the works and their intended sites, and sited the works in photo-montage. These sculptures and photo-montages were exhibited in a one-woman show entitled "Improbable Sites" at SoHo 20 Gallery, New York, NY, in 1990. The show was reviewed in Manhattan Arts, March-April 1990, pg. 12. This site-specific art developed the conceptual considerations of artistic form and siting that were already present, if less explicit, in her work with A.R.E.A.

SYNOPSIS
Birth, January 20, 1921, in New York, NY. Death, May 23, 2004, New York, NY

MAJOR SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1. Verna Wear Gallery, Manhattan, one-woman show, 1957.
2. Kaymar Gallery, Manhattan, retrospective, 1962; one-woman show, 1964.
3. ***** ***** Gallery, Manhattan, one-woman shows, 1966 and 1968.
4. Gimpel & Weizenhoffer, Manhatten, one-woman show, 1973.
5. Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, one-woman shows, 1974, 1978 and 1991.
6. Ft. Lauderdale Museum of the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, four-women show, Refractions Reflections, 1977.
7. Theo Portnoy Gallery, Manhattan, one-woman shows, 1978 and 1980.
8. Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN, one-woman show, 1979,
9. SoHo 20 Gallery, Manhattan, one-woman shows, 1985/1986, 1990.

SELECT ENVIRONMENTAL INSTALLATIONS
1. Wind Intervals, 1976. Enameled and stainless steel. Each unit 11' x 3' x 3'. Installation, Roosevelt Island, New York, NY, sited 1976-1986.

2. Sail Structure, 1978. Aluminum with Dacron sails. 9' x 6' x 5.5'. Installation, Wards Island, New York, NY, June 1978 - April 1979; Fort Wayne, IN, June – July 1979.

3. Red Tumble, 1980. Aluminum frame with painted aluminum slats. 9' x 9' x 6'. Installation, reflecting pool, US Office of Personnel Management, Eleventh International Sculpture Conference, Washington, DC, 1980; Montgomery Community College, Blue Bell, PA, September 1984 - June 1985.

4. Lawn Peacock, 1984. Aluminum with painted aluminum slats. 12' x 10' x 8.5'. Installation, Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary, 1985.

5. Pyramid Butterfly, 1985. Steel with painted aluminum slats. 9.5’ x 8’ x 6.5’. Installation, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, Robert Moses Plaza, New York, NY, 1985-1986.

ART ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIPS
Artists Representing Environmental Art (A.R.E.A.)
Sculptors’ Guild

ART SCHOOLS
The New School

ART TEACHERS OF SPECIAL INFLUENCE
Grace Greenwood
Seymour Lipton

SYLES, SUBJECTS, MEDIUMS

EARLY CAREER:
Expressionist figural painting
Abstract expressionist painting

MID CAREER:
Bio-morphism
Bio-morphic painting
Bio-morphic collage
Bio-morphic wood relief
Bio-morphic fabricated, polished aluminum and Lucite sculpture (both stationary and kinetic, sculpting in form shadow and reflection)
Sculpture as jewelry (Sculpture-to-wear)
Multiples
Color Alphabet

MID TO LATE CAREER:
Kinetic large-scale environmental art, moved by wind, also water.
Conceptual art
Photomontage
Site-specific sculpture

GEOGRAPHY: WHERE LIVED AND WORKED
Lived and worked in New York, NY

PERMANENT MUSEUM COLLECTIONS:
1. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Inv. 66.069 (Elongated White Oval, 1966, biomorphic wood relief)

2. Syracuse University Art Galleries, Inv. 1967.41 (Orange Constellation with Lights, 1966, biomorphic wood relief with lights)

3. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, Inv. 72.88 (Sculpture-to-burn, 1972, gift of Philippe de Montebello, offset lithograph on paper)

4. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Inv. 1978.129.165 (Color Alphabet, undated, colored ink with stencils on paper)

5. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MI, Inv. LIB 2000.900 (Color Meditations, 1973, book, offset lithograph on paper, Color Alphabet© composition, accordion-folded between hard covers)

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. “They Can Do Worse,” Life, vol. 67, no. 24, Dec. 12, 1969, pg. 82.

2. "Outdoor Sculpture: Penny Kaplan, Phyllis Mark: Roosevelt Island, Blackwell Park West". Artists Representing Environmental Art, New York 1977. OCLC No. 48817091.

3. Glueck, Grace. “Sculpture Under a City Sky,” The New York Times, July 14, 1978, Weekend, pg. 1

4. "Sculpture in Color, 1978-1979. New York Upper East River Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition: Dorothy Gillespie, Seena Donneson, Phyllis Mark, Penny Kaplan, Paul Sisko. Artists Representing Environmental Art, New York 1979. OCLC No. 29244433.

5. *****, ***** M. Phyllis Mark. Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN, 1979. OCLC No.(###) ###-#### (color plates)

6. *****, ***** Crocker. American Drawings, Watercolors, Pastels and Collages in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1983, pg. 240.

7. Phyllis Braff, “Phyllis Mark,” Arts Magazine, May 1985, pg. 15. (color photo)

8. Diana Roberts, “Phyllis Mark’s ‘Improbable Sites’,” Manhattan Arts, March-April 1990, pg. 12. (color photo)

9. Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975. Madison, CT 1999.

ARCHIVES
Smithsonian, Archives of American Art: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/phyllis-mark-papers-7854 Smithsonian, Archives of American Art, Phyllis Mark papers, 1930-1977.
Papers from 1977 to the artist’s decease remain at present with her estate.