Mary Grigoriadis

James Cohan is pleased to present an exhibition of works by New York-based artist Mary Grigoriadis (b. 1942, Jersey City, New Jersey), on view at the gallery’s 52 Walker Street location from June 22 through July 28, 2023. Mary Grigoriadis is organized in partnership with Accola Griefen Fine Art, New York, and features paintings and works on paper from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

For over four decades, Mary Grigoriadis pushed the bounds of oil painting by pursuing new approaches to composition, color, and ornament in her works on raw linen and canvas, which reveal an orchestration of concise brushstrokes. Bridging multiple art movements in mid-century New York, Grigoriadis was a founding member of A.I.R., the first women’s art gallery in the United States, and exhibited as part of the Pattern and Decoration (P+D) group. P+D elevated the motifs of decoration to fine art, and Grigoriadis married these references with the formal, exacting sentiments of a minimalist painter. Within this historical context, her painterly language and style demonstrate a unique approach to art-making—one that considered rigorous, process-based painting alongside the liberatory initiatives of her time.