About Martha Crow

About Martha Crow

I live in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and paint nearby in a studio that overlooks the Gowanus Canal. My view has inspired me to paint the local industrial panorama: blue skies over old factories, cement yards and abandoned cars and trucks—it’s weird and lovely.

I also paint both large and small still lifes, although lately I have been doing mostly small still lifes, because the large landscapes take up so much of my painting time.

My hometown is Loudonville, Ohio, in the green and hilly north-central part of the state. I received my bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, where I majored in Studio Art. I later earned a master of fine arts degree in painting from Queens College.

My exhibitions include a one-artist exhibit at Tatistcheff Gallery on 57^th Street in New York City. My recent group exhibitions include one at Jackson Artworks, Omaha, Nebraska (May 15 to June 27, 2010), two at Up Front Art in Manhattan’s Chelsea district as well as the Still Life Invitational at Ammo in Brooklyn’s Dumbo.

I have exhibited with my sisters at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and Case Western in Cleveland: Martha Crow, Paintings; Mary Crow, Poetry; and Nancy Crow, Quilts. Nancy and I also had a show at The Spangler-Cummings Galleries in Columbus.

Some juried exhibitions I have been included in are the national Midyear Exhibition at the Butler Art Institute in Youngstown, Ohio (2010, 2009, 1989, 1980, 1978). My regional juried exhibitions include several at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and Women Artist Paperworks Regional, Lawrence, Kansas, for which I received a Juror’s Award. I was awarded a Juror’s Award by Nancy Hoffman of the Hoffman Gallery for my work at the Eight-State Exhibit at the Oklahoma Art Center. After moving to the east I showed my work in local juried shows, including the New Jersey Regional in Newark and two Art of the Northeast exhibitions at the Silvermine Guild in Connecticut, at one of which I received a Juror’s Award.

My honors include an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in Painting, Oberlin College Alumni Fellowship in Painting; and several residencies, including one at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Over the years I developed a second career in editing and spent fifteen years on the staff at Food & Wine magazine. While working there, I also did freelance editing.

My work is in the following collections: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri; Midlantic Bank, Newark, New Jersey; Muelbach Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri; Mutual Benefit Life Insurance, Kansas City, Missouri; Sheraton Crown Royal Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri; Williams Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Wolfe Industries, Toledo, Ohio, as well as in various private collections.