Mari Lyons

• Name — Mari Blumeau Lyons • Birth Name — Mari Blumeau • Born — 1935 • Birthplace — California • Place of death — New York City, New York • Education — Bard College (B.A., 1957), Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA, 1958) • Occupation — Painter and artist • Known for — Modernist art

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.

Mari Lyons graduated from Bard College in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in art. Her two main art professors were Louis Schanker and Stefan Hirsch. She also received a master’s of fine art (MFA) in painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1958.

Mari moved with her husband Nick Lyons to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1958, then to New York City in 1961, where she painted for forty years. Mari painted a wide variety of genres, including landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, and abstracts. Her work was done in the modernist style, though she used several different kinds of mediums as an artist, including watercolor and oil paints. 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.

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.