{{Short description|American artist (1909–2007)}} {{Infobox artist |image=File:Mary Perry Stone at work.jpg |caption=Mary Perry Stone working in direct plaster, Sausalito, CA, 1958. |birth_date={{Birth date|1909|05|09}} |birth_place=Jamestown, Rhode Island, U.S. |death_date= {{Death date and age|2007|06|06|1909|05|09}} |death_place= Ashland, Oregon, U.S. }} '''Mary Perry Stone''' (May 9, 1909 – June 6, 2007) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. She is best known for her social protest artwork. Her archives are held in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=|title=Mary Perry Stone papers, 1937-1994|url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/mary-perry-stone-papers-6568|access-date=2021-10-08|website=www.aaa.si.edu|language=en}}</ref>

== Early life and education == Mary Perry was born on May 9, 1909, in Jamestown, Rhode Island.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Mary Perry Stone (1909-2007)|url=https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/stone_mary_perry_1909_2007_/|access-date=2021-10-08|website=www.oregonencyclopedia.org|language=en}}</ref> At the age of 15, she went to New York City to study art at the Art Students League of New York. After high school, she completed her art training at Traphagen School of Fashion and Design in New York. At the same time, she studied sculpture at the New School for Social Research with sculptor Aaron J. Goodelman. Recalling this time in a taped interview for the Smithsonian Archives,<ref name=":0" /> she said she initially worked in clay, which would be cast into plaster, and that by the time she was 21, she had learned to carve marble and other stone. It was Goodelman who submitted Perry's sculpture of a dancer to an April 1934 Metropolitan Museum of Art layman exhibit. Her sculpture won an honorable mention.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Streng|first=Ramie|date=Summer 2001|title=The Lost Sculptures of Mary Perry Stone|journal=Art & Antiques|pages=130–131}}</ref>

== Early work == After graduating from Traphagen at the outset of the Great Depression, Perry stayed in New York.<ref name=":2" /> By 1930 she had become friends with Black dance pioneer Edna Guy, as she described in the sound recording held by the Smithsonian Archives.<ref name=":0" /> In April 1934, Perry designed the sets for Guy's performance with her ensemble at Carnegie Hall.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Announcement for a performance of Edna Guy and her group, 1934 Apr., from the Mary Fanton Roberts papers, 1880-1956|url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/announcement-performance-edna-guy-and-her-group-10223|access-date=2021-10-08|website=www.aaa.si.edu|language=en}}</ref> In addition, Perry's watercolors were exhibited in the lobby during the performance. In 1935, she participated in a sculpture exhibition put on by the Artists Union,<ref name=":0" /> of which ''New Masses'' magazine said, “Particularly noticeable is the fact that more and more sculptors are turning to revolutionary subject matter.”<ref>{{Cite web|date=April 2, 1935|orig-year=|title=New Masses 1935|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/index.htm|access-date=2021-10-09|website=www.marxists.org|page=45}}</ref>

== Work for the New York Federal Art Project, 1937-41 == thumb|''The Bowery'', sculpted in direct plaster by Mary Perry Stone, 1939 To keep artists employed during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) established the Federal Art Project (FAP) in 1935. The New York City Federal Art Project, a group within FAP, hired Perry in 1937, initially as an art teacher.<ref name=":2" /> She taught children sculpture in community centers in New York City including the Harlem Community Art Center and East Side House Settlement. Her supervisors at the Harlem Community Art Center included the teacher and sculptor Augusta Savage and the poet Gwendolyn Bennett.<ref name=":0" />

After a year of teaching, Perry was transferred to the “Easel Division,”<ref name=":2" /> which paid artists a weekly wage to create paintings and sculpture.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Federal Art Project (FAP) {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/federal-art-project-fap|access-date=2021-10-08|website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> She was one of forty women sculptors in the New York Division.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Carlton-Smith, Ph.D|first=Kimn|title=A New Deal for Women: Women Artists and the Federal Art Project, 1935-1939|publisher=Rutgers the State University of New Jersey|year=1990|location=New Brunswick}}</ref> She sculpted in direct plaster as well as in stone, producing ''The Bowery'' and ''War''. The 500-pound marble ''War'' was shown in the United American Sculptors First Annual Exhibition held at the New School For Social Research in 1939.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last1=Kirwin|first1=Liza|last2=Polcari|first2=Stephen|last3=Brown|first3=Robert F.|last4=Karlstrom|first4=Paul J.|date=1995|title=Regional Reports|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1557521|journal=Archives of American Art Journal|volume=35|pages=5–16|doi=10.1086/aaa.35.1557521 |jstor=1557521 |issn=0003-9853|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Perry's oil painting “All for Money,” also created at this time, expressed her concern with fascism, racism, and the disparity between the rich and poor. These would remain themes of her work throughout her life. The painting was shown at the American Contemporary Art (ACA) Galleries in New York in 1939.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|title=Videos|url=http://maryperrystoneartist.com/videos|access-date=2021-10-09|website=Mary Perry Stone|language=en-US}}</ref> In 1940, the Federal Art Project hired Perry to assist sculptor Cesare Stea in preparing his sculpture for installation at West Point.<ref name=":2" /> While working in New York, Perry became friends with artists including Peter Grippe, Joseph Wolins, and Francois H. Rubitschung.<ref name=":0" />

Perry's time with the Federal Art Project ended in 1941.<ref name=":2" /> The project itself ended in 1943, and according to art historian Eleanor Carr,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carr|first=Eleanor|date=1972|title=New York Sculpture during the Federal Project|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/775543|journal=Art Journal|volume=31|issue=4|pages=397–403|doi=10.2307/775543|jstor=775543 |issn=0004-3249|url-access=subscription}}</ref> much of the free standing sculpture that had not been allocated to particular sites was warehoused, and with the termination of the WPA, it was destroyed. It was possibly thrown in the East River by order of an administrator.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news|last=Richard|first=Amy|date=April 2, 1997|title=Ashland artist keeps protest spirit alive|work=Ashland Daily Tidings}}</ref> None of Perry's WPA sculptures remain.<ref name=":1" />

== Personal life: New York == During World War II, Perry worked at the Brooklyn Navy yard grinding burrs off of torpedoes,<ref name=":5" /> then at the Newport Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, as a draftsperson for torpedo design revisions.<ref name=":0" /> Around the time she left the Art Project, she married Dmitri Goulandris and was divorced five years later. In 1947 she married writer Ed Stone. Their daughter Ramie was born in 1948.<ref name=":2" />

== California, 1953-1992 == Mary Perry Stone, her husband Ed, and their daughter moved to San Francisco in 1953, where she continued to sculpt and paint.<ref name=":1" /> Stone won an award from the Oakland Museum's 1958 California Sculptors Annual for her sculpture ''Musician''.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Chipp|first=Herschel B.|date=December 1958|title=Art News from San Francisco|work=Art News Magazine}}</ref> She exhibited in various galleries in the San Francisco area, including Telegraph Hill Gallery, the Artists Cooperative,<ref name=":1" /> the Greta Williams Gallery,<ref>{{Cite news|date=May 31, 1959|title=Guide|work=San Francisco Examiner}}</ref> and Grodsky's.<ref>{{Cite news|date=October 11, 1959|title=Datebook|work=San Francisco Chronicle}}</ref> In 1962 Stone and fellow artist Richard Van Wingerden exhibited together at Neville's.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mill Valley Record 7 February 1962 — California Digital Newspaper Collection|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MVR19620207.2.31&srpos=3&e=-------en--20-MVR-1--txt-txIN-%22mary+perry+stone%22-------1|access-date=2021-10-08|website=cdnc.ucr.edu}}</ref> thumb|440x440px|Mary Perry Stone, ''Comment on Vietnam''. Oil on canvas, 180 x 34 inches In the 1960s and 1970s, Stone began working primarily as a painter. As a reaction to the Civil Rights struggles and Vietnam war, she began creating social protest murals and paintings, including “disturbing images of the innocent victims, especially women and children.”<ref name=":3" /> She also contributed artwork to ''People’s World'', particularly drawings of women that provided social/political commentary.<ref>{{Cite web|title=People's World Photograph Collection|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8pz5fz6/entire_text/?query=%22mary%20perry%20stone%22|access-date=2021-10-09|website=oac.cdlib.org|at=Box 36, folder 6 and box 38, folder 7}}</ref> She had a solo anti-Vietnam-war exhibition at Dominican College's San Marco Gallery in 1968<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite news|last=Seaver|first=Lillian|date=March 14, 1968|title=Mary Perry Stone Exhibits at Dominican College|work=Dominican College Press Release}}</ref> and became part of the Sausalito Teahouse group founded by Ross Curtis, an artist and political progressive.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2008-10-15|title=Exhibit honors Sausalito artists known as Teahouse Group|url=https://www.marinij.com/general-news/20081015/exhibit-honors-sausalito-artists-known-as-teahouse-group|access-date=2021-10-09|website=Marin Independent Journal|language=en-US}}</ref> A 2016 documentary, ''I Paint, I Protest''<ref name=":4" /> contains detailed commentary by her daughter Ramie Streng on some of Stone's paintings related to the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war.

Stone established an art gallery in Mill Valley, California, followed in 1964 by the Mary Perry Stone Studio Gallery in San Rafael.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=California Art Gallery and Museum Ephemera Collection|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8q241mq/entire_text/?query=%22mary%20perry%20stone%22|access-date=2021-10-10|website=oac.cdlib.org}}</ref> She exhibited artists including Ross Curtis, Eileen Curtis, Richard Van Wingerden<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 7, 1964|title=Mary Perry Stone Gallery|work=San Rafael Independent Journal}}</ref> and Russell Chatham.<ref>{{Cite news|date=February 20, 1965|title=Round Marin|page=M16|work=Marin Independent Journal}}</ref>

Stone was divorced from her husband Ed in 1975.

== Oregon, 1992-2007 == thumb|Mary Perry Stone, ''Thanksgiving - Thank You Slaves''. Oil on canvas, 63 x 78 inches, 1998. Stone moved from the Bay Area to Ashland, Oregon, in 1992. In Ashland she focused on painting social protest murals.<ref name=":5" /> These included ''The Devil and His Wife Cavorting in the Free Markets of the World'', ''Eve Gives Birth to Adam'', and ''Tiptoe Through the Homeless.'' The murals are shown, along with archival footage of Stone herself, in the documentary ''Plenty to Say: The Radical Murals of Mary Perry Stone''.<ref name=":4" />

In Oregon, Stone exhibited at galleries including the Jega Gallery (1997)<ref name=":5" /> and The Rogue Gallery and Art Center (“60 Years of Protest,” 2000).<ref>{{Cite news|last=Varble|first=Bill|date=March 7, 2000|title=Artist Depicts Injustice's True Colors|page=2A|work=Medford Mail Tribune}}</ref> A solo show, “A Lifetime of Art,” at the Grants Pass Museum of Art in 2001 included the painting ''Corporate Predator''.<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 2, 2001|title=Grants Pass Museum Art Exhibit|page=11|work=Ashland Daily Tidings Revels}}</ref> The last solo show of Stone's lifetime was in 2006 at the Thorndike Gallery at the University of Southern Oregon.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Streng|first=Ramie|date=Summer 2009|title=Remembering Mary Perry Stone (1909-2007)|url=https://www.academia.edu/11688005|journal=The Arts Politic|page=58|via=Academia}}</ref>

After's Stone's death, the Jega Gallery<ref>{{Cite news|date=October 7, 2011|title=Contemporary Artworks by Late Artists|work=Medford Mail Tribune}}</ref> and Madashell Galleries<ref>{{Cite news|date=May 6, 2011|title=Working for a Just World - A Collection of Protest Murals|work=Medford Mail Tribune Tempo}}</ref> exhibited her paintings; the Madashell show was entitled “Working for a Just World – A Collection of Protest Murals.” Her murals, War, ''Thanksgiving – Thank You Slaves'', and ''Tickertape-Wall Street-Feast of the Bulls'' were also reprinted in the magazine ''Arts Politic'' (2009).<ref name=":6" /> Southern Oregon University's Schneider Museum of Art included work by Stone in its exhibit “The Mythical State of Jefferson” in 2010.<ref>{{Cite web|title=2010 Mythical State of Jefferson|url=https://sma.sou.edu/exhibitions/2010-the-mythical-state-of-jefferson/|access-date=2021-10-10|website=Schneider Museum of Art|language=en-US}}</ref> On February 5, 2010, the inaugural exhibit at “The Mary Perry Stone Women’s Art Gallery” at the Missing Peace Art Space opened in Dayton, Ohio. This exhibit, entitled “Art Makes Us Human,” showed Stone's social protest work.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Steinberg|first=Deborah|date=2010-02-23|title=WPA Artist Mary Perry Stone Honored for SWAN Day|url=https://www.womenarts.org/2010/02/23/wpa-artist-mary-perry-stone-honored-for-swan-day/|access-date=2021-10-10|website=WomenArts|language=en-US}}</ref>

Mary Perry Stone died at the age of 98 on June 6, 2007, in Ashland, Oregon.<ref name=":6" />

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links == * https://vimeo.com/user45636257 Five short documentaries about Stone's artwork, placing it in the context of the times. * https://www.instagram.com/maryperry09/ Displays a compete collection of Stone's artwork.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Perry Stone, Mary}} Category:Sculptors from California Category:Painters from California Category:American muralists Category:1909 births Category:2007 deaths Category:People from Jamestown, Rhode Island Category:Painters from Oregon Category:Sculptors from Oregon Category:21st-century American women painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:20th-century American women painters Category:20th-century American painters Category:20th-century American sculptors Category:21st-century American sculptors Category:Art Students League of New York alumni Category:Federal Art Project artists Category:Painters from Rhode Island Category:Artists from San Francisco Category:People from Ashland, Oregon Category:20th-century American women sculptors Category:21st-century American women sculptors