Mercedes Matter

A central but overlooked figure of the New York School in the1930s, Mercedes Matter (1913-2001) was born in New York in 1913, the daughterof American modernist artist Arthur Carles. During the 1930s, Matter worked forthe Works Progress Administration alongside Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky,and Lee Krasner, with whom she became lifelong friends. An original member ofthe American Abstract Artists and one of the first female members of thestoried Club in the early 1950s, Matter played an important role in the NewYork School, particularly through her founding of the New York Studio School.The School was founded on her belief that extended studio classes, which at thatpoint had fallen out of art school curricula, were necessary for ‘the painfullyslow education of the senses’ which Matter considered an artist’s calling.

Matter’s early work in her twenties include Fauvist inspired stilllifes, such as this work “Table Top Still Life,” created around 1936.Characterized by one critic as “crowded, jostling, mountainous still lifes,”this body of work speaks to the artist’s precocious development of her ownenergetic vocabulary of abstract expressionism at a time when it was not yet afully codified style. Around this time in 1936, the artist produced numerousstill lifes set on tilted tables. In this particular painting, Matter fragmentsthe objects to such a degree that they are hardly recognizable in a traditionalrepresentational sense. Rather, the different elements swirl in space, theirhigh-keyed colors reflecting the influence of Matisse and Cezanne, as well asthat of Hans Hofmann, the German emigré artist who had a profound impact onMatter’s development as an artist. For Hofmann, the essential meaning of theverb “to paint” was “to form with color,” and as such, he understood paintingas the ability to exploit color constructively, a view that Matter implicitlyadopted during this period.

Mercedes Matter continued to paint and teach up until her death atage 87 in 2001. New York Studio School, which she founded in 1964, stilloperates today. Her legacy lives on not just through her work but also throughher teaching at the School, which influenced younger generations of artists.The founding manifesto of the School was signed by de Kooning, AlexanderCalder, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Isamu Noguchi, Mark Rothko, andothers; early faculty included Philip Guston, Alex Katz, and Meyer Schapiro.

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