Mary Abbott (1921-2019) loved the water. Her father, Lt. Commander Henry Livermore Abbott, was a decorated submarine commander in the first World War and a Naval advisor to FDR during WWII. She inherited his love of the sea. A native New Yorker (and sometimes cover girl), she came of age there as an artist in the late 1940s, joining the ranks of the new Abstract Expressionist movement. Her contemporary alignments included David Hare, Barnett Newman, and Willem de Kooning. A student of European Modernism, she was lucky to land a spot in the short-lived experimental school formed in 1948 called Subjects of the Artist. Organized by Mark Rothko, William Baziotes, Barnett Newman, David Hare and Robert Motherwell, Abbott fit right in but remembers: “Motherwell was in charge and he was OK, but always trying to educate you… I preferred Barney Newman and Rothko… they were the ones I learned the most from.”
