Valerie Maynard

Valerie Maynard was born in Harlem, New York City. She studied painting and drawing at the Museum of Modern Art and printmaking at the New School for Social Research, New York City, and received an MA in art and sculpture from Goddard College, Plainfield, VT.

Maynard was a leading participant in, and contributor to, the growth of the Black Arts Movement. In January 1977, she exhibited with other noted African American artists at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture—widely known as FESTAC ’77—in Lagos, Nigeria. More recently, she was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition, Valerie Maynard: Lost and Found, at the Baltimore Museum of Art from March 1, 2020 to January 3, 2021.

Maynard’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City; National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH; National Art Museum of Mozambique, Maputo; Nigerian National Museum, Lagos; and Riksutställningar (Swedish Exhibition Agency), Stockholm. Her public artwork Polyrhythmic of Consciousness and Light is installed in the 125th Street subway station in New York City. 

She has received awards, residencies, and other honors and support in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New York, including a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in printmaking. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY; Massachusetts Institutes of Technology, Cambridge; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City. 
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records with excerpts from http://galeriemyrtis.net/tag/valerie-maynard/, accessed on 10-27-2021.

Artist Info


Born

1937

Harlem, NY

Died

September 19, 2022

Baltimore, MD

Gender

Female

Nationality

American

Heritage

African American

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