Installation view of Mary Heilmann: Water Way, Guild Hall, East Hampton, August 3 – October 26, 2025. Photo: Francine Fleischer
Exhibition Walkthrough & Book Launch with Melanie Crader and Liane Thatcher
Please join Melanie Crader, Guild Hall museum director and curator of visual arts and Liane Thatcher, Mary Heilmann’s Studio Director of over 25 years, for an exhibition walkthrough of Heilmann’s exhibition Water Way. This conversation will coincide with the launch of Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 1973-2019, the first publication dedicated to Heilmann’s works on paper practice which feature many of the works included in the artist’s Guild Hall exhibition.
Books are available both signed and unsigned in advance as an add on to your ticket purchase, or unsigned in-person while supplies last. To add the book to your purchase, choose the “Products” tab before checking out. Books are $48 signed, and $38 unsigned, plus tax.
Melanie Crader
Melanie Crader is the museum director and curator of visual arts at Guild Hall, where she leads the institution’s visual arts program, curatorial strategy, and stewardship of the collection.
Since joining Guild Hall in 2023, she has curated exhibitions including Julian Schnabel: Selected Works from Home; Functional Relationships: Artist-Made Furniture; Mary Heilmann: Water Way; Joel Mesler: Miles of Smiles; Arcmanoro Niles: Forgotten Words I Never Got to Say; Ross Bleckner: NEVER THE LESS; and A Creative Retreat: Portraits of Artists.
Crader previously served as deputy director of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY. She was formerly director of exhibition and publication management at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and earlier held key roles at the Menil Collection in Houston.
Photo: Lori Hawkins
Liane Thatcher
Liane Thatcher, Studio Director, has been working with Mary Heilmann for 25 years. Previously she worked as a curator for private contemporary art collectors, and held positions at AT&T Foundation, The Drawing Center and Obelisk Gallery. Thatcher holds a MFA Arts Administration Columbia University, and a BA Art History Tufts University.
Mary Heilmann
Mary Heilmann was born in 1940 in San Francisco, California. She earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1962), and an MA from the University of California, Berkeley (1967). She moved to New York the following year, in 1968. Since then, Heilmann’s work has appeared in three Whitney Biennial exhibitions (1972, 1989, 2008) and is included in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco MOMA, National Gallery of Art, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, Netherlands, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2017), was a United States Artists Oliver Fellow (2014), has received the Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation Award (2006) and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Mary Heilmann: Starry Night an early body of sculptural work is currently on exhibit at Dia Beacon NY. In April an installation, Mary Heilmann: Long Line, debuted at the Whitney Museum offering a social space environment with a large mural and seating by the artist. In the fall Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 1973-2019 will be published with an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by artist Ilana Savdie.
Mary Heilmann lives and works in Bridgehampton, New York and New York City.
Photo: Jo Ann Comfort
Sponsors
Mary Heilmann: Water Way Lead Sponsors:
Jacqueline Brody, Agnes Gund, Ellen and Howard Katz, Louise Riggio, and The Tessler Family
Additional Support: Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip Aarons, Carol and John Finley
Media Partner: CULTURED
Visual Arts programs are supported by funding from Barbara and Richard S. Lane, Lucio and Joan Noto, The Michael Lynne Museum Endowment, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, and additional support provided by The Giuppy Nantista Fund and The Hoie Fund.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Museum: Shari and Jeff Aronson, The Artist Profile Archive, William L. Bernhard, The Hayden Family Foundation, Robert Longo and Sophie Chahinian, Elin and Michael Nierenberg, Onna House, Lori and John Reinsberg, Jeff and Audrey Spiegel, Hillary and Jeff Suchman, Jane Wesman and Don Savelson, and Yurman Family Foundation.