Born in New York City in 1935, Michael Mazur received a B.A. from Amherst College, Massachusetts, in 1958, studying in his senior year at the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. He went on to earn both a B.F.A. (1959) and an M.F.A. (1961) from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut. Mazur's first teaching position was at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1961 to 1964. He was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for 1964-65. From 1965 to 1976, he taught at Brandeis University, and from 1976 to 1978 at Harvard University.

Mazur, an artist, teacher, and writer, has been active in reviving the monotype process. He contributed an essay to the pioneering exhibition catalogue The Painterly Print, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1980. Mazur chaired the New Provincetown Print Project, which encourages artists to create monotypes at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has served on the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mazur studied with Leonard Baskin, Gabor Peterdi and Bernard Chaet in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and became well known as a printmaker, depicting figurative images, household objects and anatomical forms. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he experimented using an airbrush to apply blacks, greys and whites in multi-panel depictions of studio spaces and objects, now without figural elements, concentrating on a personal vision of pictorial space. He has worked with monotypes for many years, including a mural commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a pair of large triptychs in monotype with pastel, "Wakeby Day/Wakeby Night."

Mazur has work in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Art Institute of Chicago.

Selected One Person Exhibitions

2000-02 Print Retrospective, Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey;
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts;
Stanford Museum of Art, Palo Alto, California;
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2000 L'Inferno: Illustrazione per L'Inferno di Dante, Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy
Recent Paintings, Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
Michael Mazur: New Paintings, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston
1999 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
Selected Drawings, Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
1998 Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1997-98 Branching The Art of Michael Mazur, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts;
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts
1997 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
1996 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
Longpoint Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
SUNY Cortland, New York
1995 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
University of Iowa Art Museum, Iowa City, Iowa
Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1994 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
U.F.O. Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
University of California Museum, Berkeley, California
1993-1997 The Inferno of Dante: Monotypes by Michael Mazur, organized by the University of Iowa Art Museum traveling to University of California, Berkeley, California;
Aldrich Museum, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts;
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York;
Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana;
SUNY, Cortland, New York;
Bowdoin College Art Museum, Brunswick, Maine
1993 Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1992 John Stoller Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1991 Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri
1990 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, New York
Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1989 Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas
1988 Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
Fawbush Gallery, New York, New York
1987 Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Joe Fawbush Editions, New York, New York
1986 Beaver College, Glenside, Pennsylvania
1985 Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
John Stoller Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York, New York
Janus Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1983 Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York, New York
1982 Smith Anderson Gallery, Palo Alto, California
Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota
Janus Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1981 Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Greensburg Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri
John Stoller Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Andrews Gallery, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
1980 Harcus Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, New York
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa
University of North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina
1977 Jane Haslam Gallery, Washington DC
Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, New York
1976 Brockton Art Center, Brockton, Massachusetts
Trinity College Museum, Hartford, Connecticut, Traveling Exhibition
1975 McCullough Mansion, North Bennington, Vermont
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Anapamu Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
1974 Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, New York
1973 The Picker Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York
Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont
1972 Jorgenson Auditorium Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
Art Center, Paul Klapper Library, Queens College, New York, New York
1971 Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire
1970 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts
1969 Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1968 Associated American Artists Gallery, New York, New York
Original Graphics Ltd., (Virginia Comisky), Los Angeles, California
1967 Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Kornblee Gallery, New York, New York
1966 Shoemaker Gallery, Juniata College, Huntington, Pennsylvania
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
1964 Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Philadelphia Print Club, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Silvermine Guild of Artists, New Canaan, Connecticut
1962 Kornblee Gallery, New York, New York
1961 Barone Gallery, New York, New York

Selected Bibliography

Baker Sandback, Amy. "Not Fully Repeatable Information:
Michael Mazur and Monotypes, An Interview." Print Collector's Newsletter 21 (Nov.- Dec. 1990)
Canaday, John. "Art: For Sake of Expression, not Esthetic Theory.
New York Times (5 March 1966): 23
Corbett, William. "Michael Mazur's New Work." Arts 59
(January 1985): 114-5
Divver, Barbara. "Michael Mazur." Arts 53 (May 1980): 2
Edelman, Robert G. "Michael Mazur at Barbara Mathes."
Art in America 73 (May 1985): 172
Florescu, Michael. "Michael Mazur." Arts 52 (March 1978): 7
Forman, Debbie. "Landscapes of the Mind." Cape Cod Times
(20 July 1996): C1, C4
Glueck, Grace. "Michael Mazur." The New York Times (28
January 1977): C16
________. "Michael Mazur." The New York Times (25
November 1983)C17
Goodman, Jonathan. "Michael Mazur: Mary Ryan." ARTnews
93 (Summer 1994): 179
Mazur, Michael. "A work that marries painting and poetry."
The Boston Globe (3 October 1982): E12
________. "Looking at Art: The Mind Landscape of Hseih
Yu-yu." ARTnews 95 (November 1996): 84-5
Raynor, Vivien. "Mazur at the Rutgers Gallery." The New
York Times (13 December 1981): 48
Silver, Joanne. "Mazur's Inferno." The Boston Herald
(22 September 1995): S17
Spring, Justin. "Reviews: Michael Mazur, Mary Ryan Gallery."
Artforum 33 (September 1994): 107-8
Stapen, Nancy. "A mature Painter branches out." The
Boston Globe (24 June 1993): 55
________. "Amid high technology, artists seek the elemental."
The Boston Globe 27 December 1990): 65-6
________. "Michael Mazur: Interpreting Hell." ARTnews
94 (November 1995): 103
Storr, Robert. "East Coast: Michael Mazur." New Art Examiner
(Chicago) 8 (December 1980): 17
Taylor, Robert. "Mazur monotypes a breakthrough." The
Boston Globe (20 March 1983): 49
Temin, Christine. "Perspectives: Joel Beck draws from a
lyrical tradition." The Boston Globe (20 March 1983): 49
Tuttman, Kathe. "Michael Mazur: Artist in Transition." New
Boston Review (Winter 1975): 14-5
Unger, Miles. "Massachusetts: Michael Mazur, Barbara
Krakow Gallery." New Art Examiner 21 (September 1993) 35
Waddington, Chris. "Saint Paul: Michael Mazur at Macalester
College Galleries." Art in America 77 (February 1989); 170-1
Walker, Barry. "The Single State." ARTnews 83 (March 1984): 60-5
Weisberg, Ruth. "Michael Mazur: Affirming the Idyll." Artweek 13
(3 July 1982): 1

Source:

Les Krantz, "American Artists, Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Artists"

http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/collections/exhibits/monotypes/mazurbio.html
http://www.barbarakrakowgallery.com/artists/bio.php/id/343