EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH & BOOK LAUNCH

Melanie Crader joined Guild Hall in Summer of 2023 as the inaugural director of visual arts as Guild Hall opened its newly renovated galleries. Recently, she served as deputy director at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, where she also served as interim director. For 8 years prior, Melanie held the role of Director of Exhibitions and Publication Management at the Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, where she was responsible for financial and administrative oversight of all curatorial initiatives, exhibitions, and publications. Managing the institution’s renowned exhibition program, she collaborated with local, national, and international institutional partners including The Met, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, MCA Chicago; Walker Art Center, Stedelijk Museum, and Pinacoteca de São Paulo.

During six years at the Menil Collection in Houston, she managed the operating budget and exhibition program, led a variety of special projects including institutional publications, oversaw major digital infrastructure initiatives, and implemented long-term budget planning for building projects and a capital campaign. Before entering the non-profit sector, Melanie worked in the marketing and communications department of an international investment company.

Originally from Louisiana, Melanie Crader, an artist and educator who taught at the university level, holds MFA from Ohio University, Athens; BA from McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA; and attended the Banco Santander W30 Program, UCLA Anderson School of Management. She is a member of the American Exhibition Organizers and served on the Steering Committee from 2017 to 2021. For several years, she served on the Board of Directors and was an Artist Board Member of DiverseWorks Art Space, Houston.

Photo: Lori Hawkins

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.

maryheilmann.com

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.

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Photo: Jo Ann Comfort