Marcia Marcus (I Paint What I Like)

Published on the occasion of a major new career retrospective, Marcia Marcus: I Paint What I Like provides a much-needed, extensive monographic exploration of a strikingly original artist.

Headstrong and wry, Marcia Marcus (1928–2025) was a fiercely original artist whose work challenges typical understanding of post-war American art. Rejecting mainstream abstraction, Marcus spent five decades painting what compelled her: languorous male nudes, parenthood, great style—subjects her peers rarely explored—all rendered in her distinctive cool and poised hand. Undaunted by New York’s male-dominated art world, she was a vivid presence in downtown Manhattan and Provincetown, pioneering as one of the first women to stage a Happening. Through decades of self-portraiture, she boldly affirmed her own creative voice and upended narrow expectations of gender with wit and defiance.

This volume illuminates Marcus’s multifaceted significance: innovative artist of post-war New York, creator of radically assertive self-portraiture, and essential forerunner of figurative painting today.