Born 1946 in Boulder, Colorado
Ann McCoy is a New York-based sculptor and painter whose career began in 1972. She is a working artist as well as an educator and art critic who writes frequently for the Brooklyn Rail. She is a lecturer at Yale in the graduate design division of the Yale School of Drama, where she teaches art history, the history of projection, and mythology. She has written about artists working with projection including William Kentridge, Nalini Malini, Lenore Malen, Carolee Schneemann, and Krzysztof Wodiczko.
She is known primarily for her large-scale pencil drawings, which are based on her dreams, studies in alchemy, and depth psychology. Ann McCoy worked with Prof. C.A. Meier, Jung’s heir apparent for twenty-five years in Zurich. She has a background in Jungian psychology, archeology, and philosophy. She has worked on alchemical texts at the Palazzo Corsini, and Vatican Library in Rome. The artist began sculpting in bronze at the Kansas City Art Institute at sixteen, and continues to work in the medium. During her year on the Prix de Rome, she worked on large winged tubs at the Mariani Foundry in Pietrasanta. Her large-scale projection pieces have included “Conversations with Angels” at the Majdanek Museum in Poland.
Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Australia, the Roy L. Neuberger Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Ann McCoy has received the following awards: the Asian Cultural Council, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Award, the Award in the Visual Arts, the Prix de Rome, the National Endowment for the Art, the Berliner Kunstler Program D.A.A.D., and the New Talent Award of Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has shown work in the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial, and has had one-person exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Poland, and Berlin.
EDUCATION
1972 M.A., University of California at Los Angeles
1969 B.F.A., University of Colorado at Boulder
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019
The Procession of the Invisible College, GRIDSPACE, New York, NY
2012
Ovum Philosophorum, Bleicher Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011
Ann McCoy: The Alchemist of Pfaueninsel, Corporale / Bleicher Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010
The Michael S. Currier Center, Putney Vermont
2008
The Transformation of the King and the Alchemist of Pfaueninsel, Galerie Zero, Berlin, DE
2007
MICROCOSM /Gallery, New York, NY
2005
The Death and the Transformation of the Monkey King, KHOJ, New Delhi, India
2004
Feminine Mysteries: Four Works by Ann McCoy, St. Joseph College, West Hartford, CT
2003
Conversations with Angels, The Majdanek Museum, Lublin, PL
1998
Central Fine Arts, New York, NY
1991
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu Hawaii
1990
Arnold Herstand Gallery, New York, NY
1988
Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
1985
Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
1984
Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
1983
Ann McCoy, Fine Arts Center, S.U.N.Y., Purchase, New York, NY
Ann McCoy, New York, Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, Switzerland
1982
Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
1981
Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York
Ann McCoy, the Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
1979
The Red Sea, Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
The Night Sea Journey, Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Portland, OR
The Red Sea and the Night Sea, The Arts Club, Chicago, IL
The Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1978
Chandler Coventry Gallery, Paddington, Australia
1977
The Red Sea, The Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1976
Ann McCoy, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1975
Ann McCoy: Large Scale Drawings and Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
1974
Fourcade Droll, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2014
Modern American Realism: the Sara Roby Foundation Collection, the Smithsonian American Museum, Washington, D.C.
2013
Thresholds, Museum of Contemporary Religions Art, St. Louis, MO
Objects of Our Affection, University of St. Joseph Gallery, West Hartford, CT.
2009
Cryptorial, Francis Lewis Gallery, Flushing, NY
2007
Women Artists of Southern California Then & Now, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2006
Omaggio a Louise Bourgeois, Museo communaled’artemoderna di Ascona, Switzerland
2002
Flat Works by Sculptors, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
1998
Modular Composite, Central Fine Arts, New York, NY
Divine Flesh, Artopia, New York, NY
1997
A Natural Selection, Z. Gallery, New York, NY
Obsessed by Magic, A.C.A. Gallery, New York, NY
1996
Views from a Golden Hill, the Equitable Gallery, New York, NY
1995
New Acquisitions, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Critters II, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
1993
Gutierrez Fine Arts, Miami, FL
Sanctuaries, Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, MOCRA, St. Louis, MI
1989
The Boat Show, Smithsonian Institution, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Animals in Art, Hudson River Art Museum, Westchester, NY
1987
Memory and Imagination, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
1986
Images of the Unknown, P.S.1, New York, NY
Second Sight, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
Art and Alchemy, Venice Biennale, Italy
1982
Still Modern After All these Years, the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
Selections from the Collection, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY
1981
Paintings, Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
Southern California Artists: 1940-1980, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, CA
1980
Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
New York/New York, Delehunty Gallery, New York, NY
On Paper, Virginia Museum of fine Arts, Richmond, VA
1979
Decade in Review, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY
1978
The Thirty First Annual Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
American Landscapes, Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, NY
1976
America 1976, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1975
Both Kinds, Contemporary Art from Los Angeles, University Art Museum Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
1974
“Choice Dealers-Dealers Choice”, The New York Cultural Center, New York, NY
Paintings and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
1973
Four Young American Artists, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
Whitney Biennial, New York, NY
Six Visions, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA
1972
15 Young Americans, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA
Los Angeles 1972, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY
1971
Sculpture 1971, Esther Bear Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
AWARDS AND GRANTS
2019
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
2017
The Pollock Krasner Foundation
2016
Tree of Life Award
Yale Star Grant
2013
Yale Star Grant
2005
Asian Cultural Council
2003
Trust for Mutual Understanding
2002
Trust for Mutual Understanding
1998
The Pollock Krasner Foundation
1996
The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation
1993
The Pollock Krasner Foundation
1990
The Alice Baber Award
1989
Award in the Visual Arts
Prix de Rome
National Endowment for the Arts
The E.D. Foundation
1983
Young Talent Awards, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
1978
National Endowment for the Arts
1977
The Berliner Kunstler Program, D.A.A.D.
1976
The Norman Wait Harris Award, The Art Institute of Chicago
1972
New Talent Award, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
Dallas Art Museum, Dallas, TX
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, HI
Hawaii State Collection, Honolulu, HI
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
The Lannan Foundation, Marina Del Ray, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY
Roy L. Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York, NY
The Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA
Powis Art Gallery, Sidney, Australia
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY