Summer Maple by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Summer Maple, 2016, oil on linen, 40" × 50" (101.6 cm × 127 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Portrait of Sylvia Plimack Mangold
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b. 1938, New York

Since the 1960s, Sylvia Plimack Mangold has developed a distinctive visual language that is grounded in figuration and transcends representation. Taking painting as her primary form of artmaking, Mangold has remained committed to an exploration of her direct surroundings as well as objects found around her home and studio.

In her early practice, she produced meticulously detailed paintings of inlaid wooden floors, often of her New York City apartment and studio. These works were followed by a focused depiction of the tools of her artistic practice—rulers, tape, and other studio elements—through which she explored themes of reflection, transparency, and the transformative power of painting itself. Mangold’s closely cropped viewpoint calls attention to the act of looking, taking the nature of perception as her subject.

In 1971, Mangold relocated to Washingtonville, New York, a move that saw a significant shift in her subject matter. Over the following decade, she increasingly turned her attention to landscape, with the trees that surround her home emerging as a central theme. By the 1990s, two specific trees populated her work: a pin oak planted by the pond on her property, and a maple tree adjacent to her home and studio. Mangold’s sustained commitment to a tightly focused visual vocabulary over the course of her career—combined with her ability to evoke a sense of quietude and reflection—recalls artists such as French painter Paul Cézanne and Italian painter and draftsman Giorgio Morandi. Mangold’s paintings act as portraits of the passage of time; she continually depicts the same trees throughout the seasons, capturing them in various states of dress, light, and weather. Her process is deliberate and deeply immersive—a single painting can take over a year to complete.

Mangold studied at The Cooper Union, New York, before earning her BFA from the Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1961. Major museum surveys of her work include Sylvia Plimack Mangold: Paintings 1965-1982, Madison Art Center, Wisconsin (1982–83), which traveled to Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan (1983); Brooke Alexander, New York (1983); and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago (1983); Sylvia Plimack Mangold: Works on Paper 1968-1991, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (1992), which traveled to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota (1992); Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, University of California, Los Angeles (1992); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York (1992); and Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (1992); and The Paintings of Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (1994), which traveled to Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (1995); Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Texas (1995); and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1995–96). In 2022, Mangold’s work from the 1970s was shown alongside newer pieces at in three curated exhibitions inspired by the ideas of Hannah Arendt, Lucy Lippard, and the painting scene in New York from 1971 to 1982.

Works by Mangold are held in public collections worldwide, including Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indiana; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, among many others. Mangold lives and works in Washingtonville, New York.

TBC by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Winter Maple, 1975, acrylic on paper, 22" × 30" (55.9 cm × 76.2 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Untitled by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Untitled, 1972, acrylic on board, 21" × 24" (53.3 cm × 61 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Winter Maple by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Winter Maple, 2023, oil on linen, 45" × 50" (114.3 cm × 127 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Taped Over 24" Exact Rule on Light Floor by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Taped Over 24" Exact Rule on Light Floor, 1975, acrylic on canvas, 20-1/8" × 24-1/4" × 1-1/2" (51.1 cm × 61.6 cm × 3.8 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

The Pin Oak by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, The Pin Oak, 1984, oil on linen, 15" × 20" (38.1 cm × 50.8 cm) © Sylvia Plimack

Leaves in the Wind by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Leaves in the Wind, 2018, oil on linen, 18" × 24" (45.7 cm × 61 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Winter by Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Winter, 2022, graphite, watercolor on paper, 30" × 22" (76.2 cm × 55.9 cm) © Sylvia Plimack Mangold