Mary Heilmann: Works on Paper, 1973–2019

An in-depth study of Mary Heilmann’s mesmerizing works on paper that explores drawing as a form of daydreaming and memory-making for the influential abstract painter. 

Instantly recognizable for its always joyful, often unorthodox approach to colour and form across multiple mediums, the work of the celebrated abstract painter Mary Heilmann overlays the analytical geometries of Minimalism with a Beat spontaneity.

This book focuses on Heilmann’s works on paper, exploring how drawing functions not only as a way of sketching out ideas in her creative practice, but also as a form of daydreaming, conjuring the sights, sounds, and events of her past travels or imagined future. A selection of works from the 1970s to recent years illuminates the recurring motifs that play out across Heilmann’s work, the ways in which she revisits and reimagines certain arrangements of form and colour, and her interest in drawing as a means of transcribing memory.