Mari Lyons

Mari Blumeau Lyons (1935-2016) was an American modernist artist, operating primarily in New York, who worked across a wide variety of media and styles.

Early life Mari was born in 1935 and began painting at an early age. As a child, she attended the Anna Head School. By age 13, she was taking courses at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. When she turned 15, she took a course with Max Beckmann at Mills College. The next summer, Mari studied with Fletcher Martin, an artist with Life Magazine, who was very supportive of her art. She also studied for several months in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, at L'Atelier Fernand Leger, and at the Atelier 17 of painter/printmaker Stanley William Hayter. While much of her painting was based around her studios in New York, she also traveled with her husband to Montana and painted landscapes there. She first exhibited her cityscapes in the 1980s and eventually exhibited her art across the United States.

Awards and recognition Mari had fourteen one-person shows at the First Street Gallery in New York City and several other shows of her work across New York and Michigan. Her work is represented widely in collections such as the “Climate Central Foundation, The Museum of the City of New York, Montana State University Library, Rider University, the DeGolyer Library (SMU), The New York State Museum (in Albany), Montana Museum of Art and Culture (Missoula)” and more.

Later years Near the end of her life, Nick and Mari took up residence in New York City and Woodstock, New York. She maintained studios in both cities. Mari died on April 3, 2016.

Selected publications illustrated by Mari Lyons, Nick., and Lyons, Mari. Sphinx Mountain and Brown Trout. Apalachicola, FL: Kevin Begos, 1997. Lyons, Nick., and Lyons, Mari. Fishing Stories: A Lifetime of Adventures and Misadventures on Rivers, Lakes, and Seas. 2014.