Herman Maril (1908–1986), often known as “The Dean of Baltimore Painters,” is a nationally recognized Modernist painter. Maril’s work is distinguished by his simplified figures and objects, reduced to their essentials. Maril’s paintings are also noted for his use of a simple, but eloquent color palette – an aspect that would later be reflected in the work of his friend, Milton Avery.
Over the decades, Maril has been regarded for his enticing paintings of subdued domestic interiors, sundrenched seaside vistas, and sometimes intimate and sometimes expansive landscapes. Maril was decidedly a contemplative artist who balanced intellect with intuition. His forms and figures are often depicted in a flattened, but orchestrated manner. The spare, exuberant quality that is felt in his paintings encourages viewers to interact and to recollect or incorporate their own stories.
Born in Baltimore into a poor Orthodox Jewish family that had no familiarity or traditions of art, Maril was nonetheless determined as a young man to become an artist. Unusually, Maril’s financially struggling family strongly supported the young artist’s single-minded professional objectives. At the age of 14, Maril misrepresented his age to become possibly the youngest student in the history of The Maryland Institute – Baltimore’s nationally prestigious art academy. Almost from the beginning, Maril immersed himself in Modernism, which, just a few years following the artist’s birth, was introduced to an often astonished (and sometimes shocked) American populace. From his teen years onward, Maril was an avid explorer of museums and galleries in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and later New York City—examining and scrutinizing some of the greatest Modernist works available to view. By 1928, at age 20, when he graduated, Maril had already become respected in Baltimore as a sophisticated Modernist artist.
Around 1928, he was introduced to the internationally renowned art collector Etta Cone who, along with her sister Claribel, created one of the most impressive Modern Art collections in United States. When visiting the dual apartments of the Cone sisters, young Maril was surrounded
by countless paintings, hung salon-style, by some of Europe’s most avant-garde artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Their collection enhanced his understanding of different approaches to the manipulation of space, forms, shapes, paint applications, and colors. In particular, the sisters collected hundreds of works by Henri Matisse, whose reductivist imagery and limited color palettes would leave an indelible mark on Maril –a mark that proved especially influential in his mature works. The Cone sisters’ collection was later given to the Baltimore Museum of Art where it is now housed in a dedicated wing.
In the early 1930s, as the Depression deepened, Maril could not afford to buy paints or canvas. His financial salvation arrived in December 1933, when Maril was accepted as a “Class A Artist” by the Public Works of Art Project – the first of the federally funded New Deal art projects. This assignment initiated a major trajectory for Maril’s career.
One of his 1934 paintings of the historic Baltimore waterfront was among those selected from the entire national PWA project to hang in a special exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition then traveled to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Institute. A similar work was then selected by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to hang in the White House. Years later, in 1977, Maril’s “Interior with Cat,” a 1972 oil painting, was selected to hang in the office of U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale (1977-81).
At this point in his career, Maril often outlined his images with dark lines, and used vertical and lateral forms to create structure and tension. Maril’s work from this period celebrated scenes of everyday life. Maril infused these works with tight, rigorous structure and an energetic juxtaposition of shapes and colors.
While Maril traveled both nationally and internationally, most of his art was created in Baltimore or on Cape Cod. In 1934, while in Provincetown, Maril and his work were personally discovered and ardently admired by the legendary Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., which now owns an extensive collection of Maril’s works. The unwavering, high-profile support of such a noted art connoisseur provided a major impetus for the success of Maril’s long and distinguished career.
Beginning in the 1940s, Abstract Expressionism changed the face of American art with new artistic reorientations that obliquely provided Maril tacit permission to further develop his own artistic vocabulary. Maril’s newly expanded vision of art fused with the vastness of the beaches, tumbling surf, and extensive ocean vistas of Provincetown. More than ever, nature became intrinsic and transformative to Maril’s works. From 1948 onward, he spent every summer painting in Provincetown.
His canvases became larger, and the sense of light-filled space provided an embracing sense of expansiveness. Colorations, while still of a limited palette, become more emotional and nuanced. One can almost sense the warmth of the sun or feel the saltiness of the sea air. Compositions became freer and more daring. At this point, Maril often softened or eliminated the edges of his imagery. Maril achieved an immediacy and dynamism that, perhaps more than anything else, expressed the artist’s consummate delight in painting.
Maril’s recurring visits to the Freer Gallery of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., would suggest an impact on Maril’s expanded vision. Like Japanese masters, Maril reduced his subjects to essential elements – bringing them together through evocative composition and economy of imagery, rather than with precise details. This can particularly be seen in Maril’s landscapes, in which the artist embracingly captures the essence of nature, but not through literal depiction.
Like Matisse before him, it was not unusual for Maril to “sketch” a work by moving around swatches of torn paper to define the forms and rhythms of a work. Maril, in his goal of simplification, reduces pictorializations to broad, flat areas of restful and delicate colors that, especially in his final years, are loosely applied without outline separations.
Importantly, as a reductivist painter, Maril achieved his effects (also like Matisse) through a limited palette of just six or seven colors. While Maril echoes the reverence for color demonstrated in the paintings of his friends, Mark Rothko and Milton Avery, Maril devised his own palette and imbued his colors with his own distinctive spirituality.
At the same time, Herman Maril’s works exuded the artist’s own generous humanity. Interestingly, the works of Herman Maril do not easily fit into any specific category of Modernism. His thoughtful, yet intuitive approach culminated in the creation of a body of work that projects— through its gently abstracted imagery and nuanced colorations—a quiet sense that all is right in this world.
Maril’s works are held in more than 50 national and international institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Justin Ferate
Boat, Sand, and Water, 1952 Oil on canvas, 16 x 25 inches
Earth and Machine, 1939-41
Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches
Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches
1926 Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Baltimore, MD
1928 Maryland Institute of Fine Arts, Baltimore, MD
2023 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
2021 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
2018 Debra Force Fine Art, New York, NY
Cahoon Museum, Cotuit, MA
2017 Debra Force Fine Art, New York, NY
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
2016 ACME Fine Art, Boston, MA (also 2007, 2004)
2015 Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
2014 Harmon-Meek Gallery, Naples, FL (also 2008, 1996, 1990)
2013 Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
David Findlay Jr Gallery, New York, NY (also 2011, 2010,
2008, 2005, 2003)
2012 The Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University,
Notre Dame, IN
2009 Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2008 Ward Museum, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD
Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA
2003 University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, MD
2001 University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, MD
James Graham and Sons, New York, NY
2000 Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA
James Graham and Sons, New York, NY
Galerie Francoise, Baltimore, MD
1998 Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, OH
Galerie Francoise, Baltimore, MD
Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY
1997 Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY
1995 Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY
St John’s College, Annapolis, MD
1994 Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA
Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY
1991 Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN
Academy of the Arts, Easton, MD
Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY
1986 Franz Bader Gallery, Washington, DC (also 1983, 1980, 1975,
1972, 1968, 1963, 1962, 1959, 1956)
1984 Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
1983 Forum Gallery, New York, NY (also 1980, 1974, 1971, 1968, 1965)
1981 University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA
1978 American Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
1977 University of Maryland, College Park, MD
1974 Wellfleet Art Gallery, Wellfleet, MA (Also 1970, 1968, 1964)
1967 Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (also 1946, 1937)
1965 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Baltimore Junior College, Baltimore, MD
1963 Athena Gallery, New Haven, CT
1962 Castellane Gallery, New York, NY
1961 Castellane Gallery, New York, NY
1959 Babcock Gallery, New York, NY (also 1956, 1953)
1955 Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
1951 Barnett-Aden Gallery, Washington, DC
MacBeth Gallery, New York, NY (also 1948, 1943, 1941)
1950 Whyte Gallery, Washington, DC (also 1947, 1944)
1949 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
1943 Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
1940 Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
1939 Wells College, Aurora, NY
New York World’s Fair, New York, NY
Hudson Walker Gallery, New York, NY
1937 Boyer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1936 Marie Sterner Gallery, New York, NY
1935 Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY
American University, Washington, DC
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, OH
Cahoon Museum, Cotuit, MA
Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE