Nancy Graves (1939-1995) was born in Pittsfield, MA, and earned her MFA from Yale University in 1964. Throughout her illustrious career, Graves employed a multidisciplinary approach to her artwork, developing a body of sculptures, paintings, drawings, watercolors, and prints, as well as multiple avant-garde films and set designs. Merging scientific and artistic approaches, her works evoke archaeological sites, anthropological studies, and natural science displays.
She came to prominence in the 1960s for her camel, fossil, totem, and bone sculptures made with a dynamic use of materials such as fur, burlap, wax, fiberglass, and wood. Notably, in 1969, she was the subject of a solo presentation at the Whitney Museum, becoming the youngest artist and only fifth woman at the time. In the 1970s, she returned to painting, extracting imagery from nature documentaries, satellite recordings, and lunar maps. Later in the decade, Graves became a trailblazer for bronze casting.
Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at Whitney Museum of Art, NY (1969); Museum of Modern Art, NY (1971); ICA Philadelphia, PA (1972); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1971, 1973, 1995); Albright-Knox Gallery of Art, NY (1974, 1980); Musuem of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (1975, 2000); The Fort Worth Art Museum, TX (1987); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, DC (1987); Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY (1987); Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany (1992, 2013); Cincinnati Art Museum, OH (1993); and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, MO (1996).
Graves is represented in the collections of major public institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, DC; National Gallery of Canada, ON; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of Art, NY; Walker Art Center, MN; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, DC; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL. Catalogues raisonnés were published on her printed work (1996) and sculpture (1987). Locks Gallery has exhibited Graves's work since 1991.
