Mary Heilmann. Works on Paper 1973-2019

Mary Heilmann’s works on paper are suffused with the same sensibility as her influential abstract paintings, a casual playfulness animating a rigorous attention to form and color, resulting in joyful, evocative geometries. Their suggestive power reflects Heilmann’s process of what she calls 'daydreaming': a conjuring of the sights, sounds, and events of past and future travels, the cyclical nature of memory informing her return to various motifs across nearly five decades of work.

Complementing Heilmann’s 2024 exhibition, Daydream Nation at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, Works on Paper, 1973–2019 comprises an introduction by Alexis Lowry, an essay by art historian Jo Applin and a personal reflection by artist Ilana Savdie, together offering a compelling account of this previously underexamined aspect of Heilmann’s practice. [publishers’ note]