Mary Sprague, longtime Professor Emeritus of Art and Art History at Meramec Community College in St. Louis, draws, paints, and most recently thinks with clay. After completing her Bachelor and Master of Arts at Stanford University in California, she moved with her husband and four children to the Midwest and has been immersed in the St. Louis art community for the past forty-five years. Her persona has been described as, “a lively and openhanded mix of infectious friendliness” and “a woman who lives her life head on with gusto and good humor” (James Yood, on Mary Sprague).
With this in mind, Sprague’s expansive repertoire of style and content has included notable studies of mysterious domestic interiors, vibrant equestrians, and currently chickens with a certain extra amount of cluck. “Sprague’s big drawings, some are more than six feet tall, do what a lot of largescale drawings from nature fail to do – they preserve the spontaneity of small life sketches while offering up magnified views of beautiful natural forms” (Margaret Hawkins, Chicago Sun Times). Trained in an era of abstract expressionism, Sprague has been able to combine color and form from multiple eras to suit her own tastes and unique almost caricatures of domestic American scenery.
Recent Exhibitions
| 2010 | La Palabra. Maryville University, St Louis, MO |
| 2010 | Rhinoceros! Duane Reed Gallery, St Louis, MO |
| 2009 | Tree Show. Blue Seed Studios, Saranac Lake, NY |
| 2008 | Animals: Them and Us. North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND |
| 2008 | Kreg Kallenberger and Mary Sprague. Duane Reed Gallery, Saint Louis, MO |
| 2007 | Chickens. Duane Reed Gallery, Saint Louis, MO (solo) |
| 2002 | Art Cache. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO |
| 1983 | currents 21: Mary Sprague. Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO (solo) |
Selected Collections
- Boatman’s Bank, St. Louis, MO
- Cap Industries, Chicago, IL
- City Museum, St. Louis, MO
- CPI Corporation, St. Louis, MO
- First National Bank of Chicago
- Governor’s Mansion, Jefferson City, MO
- Kamm Teapot Museum, Sparta, NC
- Las Vegas Art Museum
- Mark Twain BancShares,Inc. St. Louis, MO
- Missouri Historical Society
- Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Mount Vernon, IL
- Municipal Art Museum, Suwa City, Japan
- Nanjing Museum of Art, Nanjing, China
- St. Louis Art Museum
- Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO