The Following is an Article from 3rdstreetgallery.com:
Born in Baltimore, MD, Marjorie Grigonis lived and worked in her studio in Philadelphia for the past 30 years. She attended George Washington University and The Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, receiving her MFA from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1965. Grigonis taught art for 14 years in the Fine Arts departments of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Middlesex College in Edison, NJ; the College of Charleston, Charleston, SC; and for one year in the Art Department of The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr.
Ms. Grigonis was one of the founders of the Amos Eno Gallery in NYC in 1973, and was a recent past director of the 3rd Street Gallery, a co-operative gallery in Old City, Philadelphia. In 1992 Grigonis was the recipient of a residency at the Vermont Studio School; in 1995 she was awarded first prize in painting in Art in Pennsylvania ‘95 at the State Museum in Harrisburg; in 2009 awarded the Van Sciver prize in the annual juried show at The Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia.
She spent part of every year for the last three decades on the rocky coast of Maine, and has visited other countries whenever possible. The varied environments and traveling itself influenced her work. She repeatedly visited Japan, France, Germany, Mexico, China and Italy. A trip to Morocco and the Sahara was the inspiration for a group of paintings.
Ms. Grigonis’s solo exhibtions included The Knapp Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), 3rd Street Gallery (Philadelphia), the Newark (NJ) Museum, Maine Maritime Academy(Castine, ME), Amos Eno Gallery (NYC) and the inaugural show for the Monsanto Gallery at Lander College (SC). She has shown at the State Museums of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and South Carolina, Woodmere Art Museum, Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC) and various private galleries. Her paintingsand prints are in the collections of the University of NC, the Medical University of SC, Pennsylvania Hospital, Wyeth Ayerst International, Inc., and in numerous private collections, in the US, France, England and Germany. Her work, drawings, paintings, prints, has always been abstract, the styles varying over four decades.
("Marjorie Grigonis In Memoriam", 3rdstreetgallery.com, 2017)
My abstract drawings and paintings are the visual record of exploration, criticism, trial and error, and discovery. The process is both determined and spontaneous; it includes critical reworking and accident as I look for something I haven’t seen before. There is little pre-planning, a painting begins with a color and gestural brushstrokes. In response to what I see on the canvas, colors are added, composition is considered. The characteristics of the media contribute substantially to the “look” of each piece. Composing an arresting image with line, shapes and colors is my primary goal. In the process, thoughts and feelings become associated with the forms thus influencing the direction and outcome of the work.
“In any kind of creative work a point is reached where our power of free choice comes to an end. The work assumes a life of its own, which offers its creator only the alternative of accepting or rejecting it. A mysterious “presence” reveals itself, which gives the work a living personality of its own.”
–Anton Ehrenzweig
George Washington University, Washington, DC
The Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
BA (1963), MFA (1965)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC
Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
Wyeth Ayerst International, Inc., St. Davids, PA
Numerous private collections in the US, and in Japan, Germany, France and the UK
1990 – 1991
Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, PA
Upper School Art: Painting, Drawing, Printmaking
1977 – 1984
College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
Department of Fine Arts: Painting, Drawing
1975 – 1976
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Department of Art: Beginning Studio, Painting I and II
1971 – 1976
Middlesex College, Edison, NJ
Department of Fine Arts: Two-dimensional Design,
Painting I and II, Introduction to Art
1971 – 1972
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Arts Workshop: Painting
2015
Horizon Theatre, Norristown, PA
2012
Present Tense, 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Gallery at the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2010
The Knapp Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2008
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2005
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2002
Maine Maritime Academy, Castine, ME
2001
Deer Isle Art Gallery, Deer Isle, ME
2000
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1999
Cosmopolitan Club, Philadelphia, PA
Spring Mill Art Gallery, Conshohocken, PA
1998
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1996
Deer Isle Art Gallery, Deer Isle, ME
1992
The Kirkbride Gallery, The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
1991
The Baldwin School Art Galley, Bryn Mawr, PA
The Monsanto Gallery, Lander College, Greenwood, SC
Inaugural Exhibition
William Halsey Gallery, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
The Abstract Imperative, Charleston, SC
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Amos Eno Gallery, New York, NY
2016
Sensuous/Pensive: At Odds And Overlapping, Booth Gallery, New York, NY
Curators: Donald Kuspit & Casey Gleghorn
catalogue
2015
Nature in Art, Rainforest Art Foundation
Snowflake Salon, Heavy Bubble, Philadelphia, PA
2014
Kaleidoscope, 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2013
Ritual, 110 Church Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Celebration of Art and Life, Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Snowflake Salon, Heavy Bubble, Philadelphia, PA
National Collage Society, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum at Ursinus College, Collegeville,
PA
2011
Abstraction, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Mascara, Projects, Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010
Snowflake Salon, 110 Church Street, Philadelphia, PA
Marks to Make, Bridge Club of Center City, Philadelphia, PA
2009
Irreverence!, Carano Gallery at Sherman Mills, Philadelphia, PA
69th Annual Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Van Sciver Prize
2008
Paper ’08, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
Salon, Carano Gallery at Sherman Mills, Philadelphia, PA
2007
1ST Annual Juried Show, Schuylkill Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2006
Smarts Juried Group Show, Gallery at Sherman Mills, Philadelphia, PA
2004
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1991 – 2001
Deer Isle Art Association, Deer Isle, ME
2000
60th Anniversary Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1999
3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Annual Juried Exhibition, Cheltenham Art Center, Philadelphia, PA
1998
Faculty Exhibition, Main Line Center for the Arts,
Haverford, PA
1997
Foundry Gallery, Washington, DC
Gloucester County College, Sewall, NJ
1995
State of the Arts: Pennsylvania’95, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
1994
Annual Juried Show, Main Line Center for the Arts, Haverford, PA
1993
Works on Paper, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
26th Anniversary Juried Exhibition, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
Art at the Armory, Philadelphia, PA
48th Annual Juried Exhibtion, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
7th Anniversary Juried Exhibition, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ:
Portfolio Gallery, Atlanta, GA
South Carolina Artists’ Exhibition, Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, SC
New Jersey Women Artists, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Art from New Jersey, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Piedmont Graphics Exhibition, The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
North Carolina Artists’ Exhibition, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
