In Memoriam
Marjorie Grigonis 1940-2017
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’s last solo exhibition at 3rd Street Gallery was in May of 2012, after which she exhibited in the Associate Member group show each year until 2016.