Lynne Mapp Drexler was born in Newport News, Virginia in 1928. Drexler began her study of art as a child, painting landscapes by the tender age of eight. In the late 1950s, after attending the College of William and Mary in Virginia, she immersed herself in Abstract Expressionism, studying with Hans Hofmann in both his New York and Provincetown schools. From there, she went on to graduate study at Hunter College in New York City with Robert Motherwell. In her early works, Drexler focused on color and composition, eventually reconciling her two interests – landscape and abstraction – in her late work of the 1980s and ‘90s.
But it was in the 1950s that she set her foundation – a synthesis of Post-Impressionist landscape painting and post-war painterly abstraction. The results are something not familiar to most students of the period, and her crisp, colorful brushwork allows the artist to sing with a completely original voice.
Classical music remained an important part of her art. When she lived in New York she regularly attended concerts at Carnegie Hall, where she would make sketches while she was in the audience. Her vibrant surfaces are both complex and painterly, but with a flatness akin to something found in the background of a Gustav Klimt work. Drexler lived the last 16 years of her life on Monhegan Island with her husband, the painter John Hultberg, she passed away in 1999.
Drexler exhibited extensively throughout her life at venues such as Tanager Gallery, Esther Robles Gallery and Westerly Gallery. She is slated for upcoming shows at the Monhegan Museum and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Monhegan Museum, Farnsworth Museum, Brooklyn Museum and the Queens Museum among others.
Sun Gallery, Provincetown, MA, 1959
Twentieth Century Gallery, Williamsburg, VA, 1960s
Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, 1960
Tanager Gallery, NYC, 1961
Tanager Gallery, NYC, 1962
2 Person Show: Galleria, San Miguel Allende, Mexico (a hand written bio says 1962), 1963
Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, 1965
Westerly Gallery, NYC, 1965
Traveling Show: American Painting Sproul Museum, Louisville, KY, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. (reproduced in catalog), 1966
Nuuana Valley Gallery, Honolulu, HA, 1967
Alonzo Gallery, MR. & MRS. PAINTING AND SCULPTURE, 1969
Alonzo Gallery, NYC, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975
Spring Arts Festival, Educational and Cultural Trust Fund of the Electrical Industry, 1971
Hudson River Museum, Ciba-Geigy Collection, 1971
Traveling Show: Martha Jackson New York Collection: Finch College, NYC; University of Maryland; Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY, 1973
Traveling Show: Ciba-Geigy Collection, 1974
Allentown Museum-Monhegan Artist Show, 1974
Christmas Shows: Tanager Gallery, NYC; Alonzo Gallery, NYC; Landmark Gallery, 1974-1979
Ciba-Geigy Collection: Women Artist Show, 1975
Landmark Gallery, NYC, 1977
Veydras Ltd, NYC, 1981
Aldona Gobuzas Gallery, NYC, 1983
Veydras Ltd, NYC, 1983
Middlesex Community College, Piscataway, NJ, 1984
St. John's University, Staten Island, NY, 1984
3 Person Show: Anita Shapulsky Gallery, NYC, 1987
Gallery 127, Portland, ME, June-July, 1989
Judith Leighton Gallery, Blue Hill ME, 1989
Gallery 6, Portland, ME, 1989
Leighton Gallery, Blue Hill, ME, 1989
2 Person Show: The Art Gallery at 6 Deering Street, Portland, Maine, April, 1992
Lupine Gallery, Monhegan, ME , 1998
Monhegan Modernists, Collection of John Day, Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston Maine, 2002
Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston Maine, 2003
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME, 2003
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, 2005
Monhegan Museum, A Century of Women Artist on Monhegan Island, 2005
other gallery shows in Maine in 2005, 2006, 2007
Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY, 2007
Best Company, Richmond, VA
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Ciba-Geigy
Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
Martha Jackson Collection
Monhegan Museum, Monhegan Is. ME
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Art (2 lithographs in Rosenwald Collection)
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Prentice-Hall Collection, NY
Queens Museum for Art Education, NY
Reynolds Metal
Tamarind Lithographs University of New Mexico
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