Mary Ann Unger

Mary Ann Unger (May 10, 1945 – December 28, 1998) was an American sculptor known for large scale, semi-abstract public works in which she evoked the body, bandaging, flesh, and bone. She is known for dark, bulbous, beam-like forms. Unger received a Guggenheim Fellowship and Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants and was a resident fellow at Yaddo. Her work is found in collections such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the High Museum of Art. In 2018, Unger's work was acquired by both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Background Mary Ann Unger was a sculptor known for her large scale works with subtle expression, in which she evoked the body, bandaging, flesh, and bone. Born in 1945, she was raised in New Jersey. She learned to weld, cast, and carve as an undergraduate student at Mt. Holyoke College, where she later earned a bachelor's degree in 1967. The 10 painted hexagonal columns are each 9 feet tall and flared like trees or flowers. It was constructed in an openwork fashion with aluminum plate ribs. The sculpture consists of three life-size abstract forms aligned as if processing. It was inspired by Monument to the Third International, a grand building designed by the Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin that was never constructed. The gallery looked like a war zone and was a reminder that declaratory emotional statements are always possible. It featured work by women who used the human figure to shape feelings of fear, loss, and pain and was inspired by Unger's own struggle with cancer. In the sculpture, the two vertical posts are shaped like forearms, which support a sausage-like form covered in bloody bandages. It also connotes passage, transformation, and new life.

The bandaging in Deposition/ Nature Mourned was partially removed due to more sanding and filing than in Unger's other pieces. The sculpture is a crowd of shapes that are phallic, intuitive, and sausage-like, laid as if thrown onto its stubby supports. The theme is migration and, according to Unger, the title refers to the Mongol migration across the land bridge between Asia and Alaska. Shanks consists of three nine-foot vertical bony shafts, each with a rounded point on the floor and topped with a bulbous knob. Her works reminded viewers that beneath our withered elements are stable, regenerative forces. She ultimately used the life-renewing energies found in creating her art as a form of healing. After her death in 1998, a 15-year retrospective was held at the McDonough Museum of Art in Youngstown, Ohio in 2000. While Jackson Davidow, writing for Artforum said, “This stunning exhibition sets the stage for a critical reassessment of her ever-vibrant and undeniably relevant work.”

Her work is found in collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the High Museum of Art.