Departures of note

Mary Heilmann was an American painter known for her vividly colored, loosely geometric abstract canvases that combined spontaneity with a deep engagement with the traditions of geometric abstraction. Born in San Francisco in 1940, she studied literature and art at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and later ceramics and sculpture at UC Berkeley before moving to New York City in 1968, where she turned decisively to painting in the early 1970s.

Over a career spanning more than five decades, Heilmann developed a distinctive style that drew on color field painting, minimalism, and the casual, off-kilter sensibility that critics later grouped under the term "provisional" painting. Her work was shown at influential venues including the Holly Solomon Gallery, the Whitney Museum, and the New Museum, and she was represented by major galleries such as 303 Gallery and Hauser & Wirth.

Heilmann was widely recognized as an emblem of the obstacles faced by women artists of her generation, receiving her first major museum retrospective, "To Be Someone," in 2007 at age 67 to rave reviews. Her work is held in major public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and she was cited by many younger painters as a formative influence.