Valerie Maynard

Valerie Maynard's work Polyrhythmics of Consciousness and Light at 125th Street subway station in NYC

Valerie Maynard (born Harlem, 1937^[1]) is an African-American sculptor, teacher, printmaker, and designer. She studied painting and drawing at the Museum of Modern Art, printmaking at the New School for Social Research and received a master's degree in Art/Sculpture in 1977^[2] at Vermont's Goddard College. She has taught at the Studio Museum in Harlem, at Howard University and at the University of the Virgin Islands.^[3] Her work has been exhibited in many cities in the United States and in Sweden.^[2] She has received many awards including residencies in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and New York and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in printmaking.^[2] She has been an artist in residence at both the Rochester and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology.^[3] She also specializes in preservation and restoration of traditional art by people of color.^[2]

She was artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem where she was a part of a group exhibition Labor, Love, Live Collection in Context, held November 14, 2007 - March 9, 2008.^[4]

In January 1977, she was part of a contingent of hundreds of African-American artists who represented the North American Zone, exhibiting in FESTAC '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria.^[5]

Her public art work, "Polyrhythmics of Consciousness and Light" is installed in a subway station on 125th Street in New York City.^[1]

Karen Berisford Getty, in a Virginia Commonwealth University thesis, "Searching for Transatlantic Freedom: The Art of Valerie Maynard", examines the history of Africans in the Americas, and Maynard's synthesis of African elements in her work.^[6]

In November 2015, she presented at the Art of Justice: Articulating an Ethos and Aesthetic of the Movement conference at New York University presented by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute in collaboration with the Department of Art and Public Policy, New York University; Institute of African American Affairs, New York University and Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University.^[7]

Individual Exhibitions

Valerie Maynard had individual exhibitions at:^[8]

• 1971 American International College, Springfield, Massachusetts
• 1973 Howard University, Washington, D.C.
• 1974 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
• 1975 Riksutställningar, Stockholm, Sweden (traveling)
• 1983 Reichhold Center for the Arts, University of the Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas
• 1988 New Visions Gallery, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• 1988 Caribbean Cultural Center, New York, New York
• 1989 Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, Georgia
• 1990 Roadworks, Dorsey Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
• 1991 Towne Art Gallery, Wheelock College, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1992 Compton Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
• 1994 Roots Through the Heart, Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester, New York

Select Group Exhibitions

Valerie Maynard has been in group exhibitions at:^[8]

• 2009 Our Common Bond: Mother, Daughter, Sister, Self, Galerie Myrtis,^[9] Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, Maryland
• 1979 Black American Graphics Studio Museum, New York (traveling through 1984)
• 1985 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (traveling through 1987)
• 1989 Caribbean Center, New York (traveling) New York Community College

Collections

Valerie Maynard's art is in the following collections:^[8]

• Brooklyn Museum, New York
• Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York
• National African American Museum, Wilberforce, Ohio
• National Museum of Mozambique
• National Museum of Nigeria, Lagos
• Riksutställningar, Stockholm, Sweden
• Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

References

External links

• Searching for Transatlantic Freedom: The Art of Valerie Maynard by Karen Berisford Getty, M.A.
• A 1969 photograph of Valerie Maynard is in the collection of MoMA