Marcia Marcus: Strange and Clear

Provincetown Art Association and Museum presents the first major museum exhibition in decades dedicated to Marcia Marcus (1928–2025): a fiercely original talent in postwar American art.

Headstrong and unapologetic, Marcus rejected mainstream abstraction early in her career. Preferring to paint figuratively, she carved out her own unmistakable style: precise, crisp, and suffused with an air of suspense, “as if”—as she described it—“something were about to begin.” 

Over a five-decade career beginning in the 1950s, Marcus turned her exacting paintbrush to subjects her peers rarely explored: languorous male nudes, motherhood, and dashing style among them. A vivid presence on the downtown Manhattan scene and in Provincetown—where she made her way most summers—she painted virtually every creative luminary of her bohemian milieu and pioneered as one of the first women to stage a Happening. All the while, she steadily built up a lifelong series of self-portraits: images through which she directly met the viewer’s gaze, asserted her own creative agency, and upended narrow expectations of gender.

While Marcus enjoyed considerable recognition early in her career, her work eventually slipped from wider view as she pursued interests that ran counter to art world trends. Today, the bracing originality that first brought her art distinction and would, in time, set it apart is ripe to surprise anew.

Marcia Marcus: Strange and Clear is the first in-depth museum exploration of this singular and self-assured painter. Bringing together work from across her career, the exhibition presents the full scope of her practice, from her feisty self-portraits to her ambitious, monumental group canvases. It also traces her relationship with Provincetown: a place she returned to across several decades and a deeply important touchstone for her art. A comprehensive survey of this sui generis artist, the exhibition illuminates her place in American art history: innovator within New York’s downtown scene, author of radically assertive self-portraiture, and essential forerunner of figurative painting today.

A companion monograph, Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like, is published on the occasion of the exhibition. Featuring 100 colour illustrations and essays by exhibition co-curators Debra Lennard and Brandon Brame Fortune together with Melissa Rachleff—alongside contributions from artists Martha Edelheit, Mimi Gross, Chantal Joffe, and Alex Katz—the volume offers the first extensive scholarly exploration of Marcus’s life and work.

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EXHIBITION PROGRAMS

FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 6PM

Public Reception.

All are welcome to join us at this celebratory reception. Free and open to the public.

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 12PM

Book Signing with Debra Lennard: Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like.

Published on the occasion of a major new career retrospective, Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like provides a much-needed, extensive monographic exploration of a strikingly original artist.

Headstrong and wry, Marcia Marcus (1928–2025) was a fiercely original artist whose work challenges typical understanding of post-war American art. Rejecting mainstream abstraction, Marcus spent five decades painting what compelled her: languorous male nudes, parenthood, great style—subjects her peers rarely explored—all rendered in her distinctive cool and poised hand. Undaunted by New York’s male-dominated art world, she was a vivid presence in downtown Manhattan and Provincetown, pioneering as one of the first women to stage a Happening. Through decades of self-portraiture, she boldly affirmed her own creative voice and upended narrow expectations of gender with wit and defiance.

Debra Lennard is an independent scholar and associate curator, Hayward Gallery Touring, London.

Included with $15 Museum admission, free for PAAM members.

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 6PM

Fredi Schiff Levin Lecture.

Join us with a panel discussion as part of our Fredi Schiff Levin Lecture Series. Included with $15 Museum admission, free for PAAM members.

THURSDAY, JULY 30, 7PM AT THE MARY HEATON VORSE HOUSE

Film Screening: Marcia Marcus: Art in the Family.

Marcia Marcus: Art in the Family is a documentary film about Marcia Marcus (1928–2025), who worked figuratively at the height of the 1950s Abstract Expressionist era.

Running 67 minutes, the film explores Marcus’s art and social life, her pioneering role in performance art, pop art and the use of photos. Topics include artistic practice and ambition, the female gaze, male nudes, the 10th Street Galleries and the New York art world, the Provincetown art scene, and the emergence of Performance Art and Happenings.

The documentary was created by Kate Prendergast— Marcus’s daughter. It has been praised for addressing the broader marginalization of women artists, with viewers noting its valuable context and testimonials on that subject.

Admission TBA.

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Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by:

Seamen’s Bank Long Point Charitable Foundation

Marcia Marcus Media, Inc.

Wyeth Foundation for American Art

Image: Marcia Marcus, Self-Portrait as Athena, 1973. Oil and gold leaf on canvas, 58 × 36 in. Private collection, promised gift on long-term loan to Minneapolis Institute of Art. © 2026 Marcia Marcus / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © Jenny Gorman