{{Short description|American painter (1942–2025)}} {{Infobox person | name = Cynthia Mailman | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1942|12|31}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2025|12|19|1942|12|31}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | other_names = | occupation = Painter, educator | alma_mater=School of Industrial Art, Pratt Institute, Mason Gross School of the Arts | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = {{unbulleted list |''God'' (1977), created for ''The Sister Chapel'' |''Commuter Landscape'' (1979) }} }}
'''Cynthia Mailman''' (December 31, 1942 – December 19, 2025) was an American painter and educator. She was known for figurative and landscape works done in a "cool, pared-down" style.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Heller|first1=Jules & Nancy G.|title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135638825|page=359}}</ref> Her early paintings were presented from a perspective inside the artist's VW van, looking outward, and include mirrors, wipers or other interior elements against the exterior landscape.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Lubell|first1=Ellen|title=Art Review|issue=V. 5 No 28|publisher=SoHo Weekly News|date=April 13, 1978}}</ref> By doing this, Mailman put the observer in the driver's seat, which is also the artist's point of view.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Shirey|first1=David L.|title=Art; The View from Within|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/01/nyregion/art-the-view-from-within.html|accessdate=27 December 2015|work=The New York Times|date=1 November 1981}}</ref> According to Lawrence Alloway, "The interplay of directional movement and expanding space is a convincing expansion of the space of landscape painting".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Alloway|first1=Lawrence|title=Art Reviews|journal=The Nation|date=April 22, 1978|page=486}}</ref>
==Education== Mailman graduated with an academic diploma in Advertising Art and Illustration from the School of Industrial Art (SIA), earned a BS in Fine Art and Education from Pratt Institute, and received an MFA in painting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.<ref>{{cite web|last1=40 Years of Women Artists at Douglass Library|first1=The Roots of Creativity: Women Artists Year Six|title=Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities|url=https://cwah.rutgers.edu/programs/mary-h-dana-women-artists-series/40-years-of-women-artists-at-douglass-library/introduction-to-women-artists-series-year-6/|website=cwah.rutgers.edu|accessdate=27 December 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070215/https://cwah.rutgers.edu/programs/mary-h-dana-women-artists-series/40-years-of-women-artists-at-douglass-library/introduction-to-women-artists-series-year-6/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Feminism== Cynthia Mailman was an active participant in the feminist art movement.<ref>{{cite web|title=Veteran Feminists of America. Records, 1993-2007: A Container List|url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01186|website=oasis.lib.harvard.edu|accessdate=27 December 2015|ref=#32, 33|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404044049/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01186|archive-date=4 April 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> She was an original member of SOHO20 Artists (est. 1973), often called SOHO20 Gallery,<ref>{{cite web|title=Organization History|url=http://soho20gallery.com/about/organization-history/|website=soho20gallery.com|accessdate=27 December 2015|archive-date=15 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151115190050/http://soho20gallery.com/about/organization-history/|url-status=dead}}</ref> a feminist, artist-run exhibition space.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Ault|editor-first1=Julie|title=Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985: A Cultural Politics Book for the Social Text Collective|date=2002|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|location=Minneapolis|isbn=978-0816637942|page=36|edition=[Nachdr.]}}</ref> Mailman also participated in ''The Sister Chapel'', a collaborative installation that celebrated female role models, which premiered at P.S.1 in January 1978.<ref name=b>{{cite book|last1=Hottle|first1=Andrew D.|title=The Art of the Sister Chapel: Exemplary Women, Visionary Creators, and Feminist Collaboration|date=2014|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|location=Farnham, Surrey|isbn=978-1472421395}}</ref> For ''The Sister Chapel'', Mailman painted ''God'', a monumental painting of the supreme deity in the form of a powerful nude woman.<ref name=b/><ref name=c>{{cite book|last1=Borzello|first1=Frances|title=Seeing ourselves : women's self-portraits|date=1998|publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc.|location=New York|isbn=978-0810941885}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Glueck|first1=Grace|title=Art People|work=New York Times|date=Nov 5, 1976}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Johnston|first1=Laurie|title=The 'Sister Chapel': A Feminist View of Creation|work=New York Times|date=Jan 30, 1978}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Brand|editor-first1=Peg Zeglin|title=Beauty matters|date=2000|publisher=Indiana Univ. Press|location=Bloomington [u.a.]|isbn=9780253213754|page=241}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Langer|first1=Sandra L.|title=''The Sister Chapel'': Towards a Feminist Iconography, with Commentary by Ilise Greenstein|journal=The Southern Quarterly|date=Winter 1979|volume=17|number=2|pages=29–32}}</ref>
==Commissions== In 1979, Mailman was commissioned to create a mural for the PATH concourse at the original World Trade Center station. The commission was by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey through the CETA Artist Project. The 8-by-54-foot mural was entitled ''Commuter Landscape'', a view of the Pulaski Skyway as seen through the train windows. It was seen by over 100,000 people a day. It was destroyed in the first terrorist attack on the WTC in 1993. Mailman declined to recreate it afterwards.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=MacFarquhar|first1=Larissa|title=Ars Brevis|magazine=The New Yorker|date=March 15, 1993|page=32|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/03/15/ars-brevis}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Public Art at the World Trade Center|url=https://www.ifar.org/nineeleven/911_public3.htm|website=www.ifar.org}}</ref> Other commissions came from City Walls, Inc. for a 24-by-26-foot wall mural in Staten Island, and from The Wall Street Journal for the 2000 Cow Parade in NYC<ref>{{cite web|title=CowParade New York, NY cow detail - Herd on the Street III: Blue Moo-n|url=http://newyork.cowparade.com/cow/detail/370|website=newyork.cowparade.com|access-date=2015-12-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305173145/http://newyork.cowparade.com/cow/detail/370|archive-date=2016-03-05|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Collections== During her lifetime, Mailman had over 20 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Everson Museum, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, the Staten Island Museum,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Mailman|first1=Cynthia|title=Highway Scene-Staten Island Museum|url=http://www.statenislandmuseum.org/collections/art-collection/highway-scene|website=www.statenislandmuseum.org|accessdate=27 December 2015|archive-date=20 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151220170943/http://www.statenislandmuseum.org/collections/art-collection/highway-scene|url-status=dead}}</ref> as well as the Sylvia Sleigh Collection at the Rowan University Art Gallery.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Sylvia Sleigh Collection|title=Rowan University Art Gallery|url=http://www.rowan.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/index.cfm?id=47|website=www.rowan.edu}}</ref> Her work is also in numerous private collections. Mailman has received grants from the New York State (1976, 1987) and Staten Island, NY (1987) art council, as well as from the NJ Committee on the Humanities (1979) and a CAPS grant (1976). Her work has been reviewed and discussed in many major newspapers and art journals.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Fressola|first1=Michael|title='Seen' it to believe it|url=http://www.silive.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2015/11/seen_it_to_believe_it_staten_island_inspires_fine_art.html|publisher=The Staten Island Advance|date=November 24, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Fressola|first1=Michael|title=Playing well together|work=Extirpated Species/Whispering Reed Villa/Summer|publisher=The Staten Island Advance|date=March 9, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Broude|editor1-first=Norma|editor2-last=Garrard|editor2-first=Mary D.|title=The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact|year=1994|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|location=New York|isbn=978-0810937321}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Claiming Space: Some American Feminist Originators|url=http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1093|website=www.caareviews.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Lynn F.|title=Lives and Works: Talks with Women Artists|year=1981|publisher=Scarecrow Press|location=Metuchen N.J.|isbn=0810814587|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/livesworkstalksw0000mill}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Delbanco|first1=Andrea|title=Playing in the Neighborhood|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/19/nyregion/playing-in-the-neighborhood-252654.html|accessdate=27 December 2015|work=New York Times|date=19 November 2000}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Lovejoy|editor1-first=Margot|editor2-last=Paul|editor2-first=Christiane|editor3-last=Vesna|editor3-first=Victoria|title=Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts|year=2011|publisher=Intellect|location=Bristol, UK|isbn=978-1841503080|page=32}}</ref>
==Death== Mailman died in Brooklyn, New York on December 19, 2025, at the age of 82.<ref name=Regan>{{cite news|last=Regan|first=Claire R.|title=Cynthia Mailman Dies: An Artist with a Passion to Protect Stapleton, She Would Have Been 83|newspaper=SILive.com|date=December 22, 2025|url=https://www.silive.com/news/2025/12/cynthia-mailman-dies-an-artist-with-a-passion-to-protect-stapleton-she-would-have-been-83.html|access-date=28 December 2025}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mailman, Cynthia}} Category:1942 births Category:2025 deaths Category:Feminist artists Category:20th-century American painters Category:Artists from the Bronx Category:Painters from New York City Category:21st-century American painters Category:20th-century American women painters Category:21st-century American women painters Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:Mason Gross School of the Arts alumni Category:American muralists Category:American women muralists