Greene-Mercier, Marie Zoe, 1911-2001

Marie Zoe Greene-Mercier was born March 31, 1911 in Madison, Wisconsin. Both of her parents were French immigrants; her father, Louis J.A. Mercier, served on the faculties of University of Wisconsin and Harvard University before returning to France to serve in World War I. Greene-Mercier described her family life during this time as "itinerant," but stability returned after the war. As a child, Greene-Mercier attended Catholic schools in the Boston area. After high school, she studied and traveled in Europe before entering Radcliffe College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1933.

Greene-Mercier's early career included work as a French teacher at Loyola University, an art critic, and assistant positions at the Renaissance Society and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1936, she began working as a French film reviewer for the International Film Bureau, a Chicago-based distributor of educational and foreign films. In 1937, she married the firm's owner, Wesley Hammond Greene. She began her association with the New Bauhaus School of Design in the same year, taking classes from 1937-1938.

The 1940s brought both the birth of Greene-Mercier's first two children, as well as the beginning of serious exposure as an artist, working in collage and sculpture. Notable early works include a series of collages, using paper mounted on glass, which she called "Polyplanes." She also exhibited figural sculptures, particularly idealized human heads and faces: Among these works are two sculptures of Greene-Mercier's sister-in-law, the actress Dame Judith Anderson.

In the early 1950s, Greene-Mercier began to produce primarily large, abstract sculptures cast in bronze. She worked in two formal styles, which she described as "Arboreal" and "Cubic." From 1953 to the late 1960s, her work was predominantly in the linear "Arboreal" style, represented by Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes and the series Orpheus. She began creating small- and large-scale works in the heavier "Cubic" style in the late 60s, and monumental sculptures in this mode would characterize her work in the 1970s.

Greene-Mercier also continued to create small paintings, collages, reliefs and drawings throughout her career. In 1969, three collections of her drawings of European cities were published by Libreria Internationale Italo Svevo as Trieste: 101 Disegni; Venezia: 101 Disegni; and Salzburg: 101 Zeichnungen.

In North America, Greene-Mercier exhibited primarily in Chicago and Canada, At the height of her career in the United States, she participated regularly in solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the Renaissance Society, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Arts Club of Chicago. However, her work found greater representation and larger audiences in Europe, with solo exhibitions held in Paris, Athens, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, and West Berlin (A

retrospective exhibition of her work was held in 1977 at Amerika Haus, Berlin). Her monumental sculptures were installed as public art in France and Germany.

Greene-Mercier participated in several Chicago-based arts organizations, including the Chicago Society of Artists, the Renaissance Society, the Arts Club of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, and the 57th Street Art Fair. She was also active in Chicago's Alliance and Maison Française. In 1956, Greene-Mercier began working with the Chicago chapter of the Artists Equity Association, advocating for the legal rights of artists. She served as president of the organization from 1959-1961. Greene-Mercier and her husband were instrumental among arts advocates who disputed the Art Institute of Chicago's use of the B.F. Ferguson Fund for Sculpture, which the museum used for operating expenses rather than for the development of the city's sculpture and monument collections.

Religion, specifically the Roman Catholic faith, played an important role in Greene-Mercier's life and profoundly influenced her artwork. Many of her mid-career works had overtly religious themes and found their way into churches and collections of liturgical art. Another important aspect of her personal life was music; she studied violin in Europe, and the influence of music on her sculpture is evident in works such as the Orpheus series.

The artist's name is often printed with alternate diacritics and hyphenations; however, she consistently represented herself as "Marie Zoe Greene-Mercier."

From the guide to the Greene-Mercier, Marie Zoe. Papers, 1870-2000, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)