Mary Tudor comes from a family of creative, unique individuals. They served as role models and provided the moral permission to enter an artistic career. Her grandfather was a naval architect and designed three winning America?s Cup racing yachts. Her grandmother was a noted portrait painter, and her aunt Tasha Tudor, is an illustrator of children?s books.
Besides these influences, Mary?s living overseas has provided her with a rich tapestry of life experiences as a foundation from which to create her artwork. Mary joined the first group of Peace Corps volunteers in the early 60?s. With a background in sciences, she was a laboratory technician in a 100-bed hospital in southern Thailand.
Later she spent three years in Japan where she studied wood-block printmaking with Rikio Takahashi a noted contemporary Japanese print-maker. The simplicity of Japanese aesthetics and the love of the intrinsic qualities of materials deeply influenced Mary to make simple but very rich paintings.
Returning stateside, she studied at the University of Washington for her Masters degree in Landscape Architecture, and then traveled to Brazil to gather information for her thesis. With the influence of the intense tropical colors of vegetation and land scape, Mary began to focus on the incorporation of color and light in her abstract artwork.
Largely self-taught, Mary found opportunities to study with Elaine de Kooning, Jack Tworkov and William Ivey. As a full time artist with thirty years experience. Mary is committed to constantly push the limits of what is known about paint and canvas. Today, she has a large following of students that attend her classes in art. Her work is exhibited in galleries in New York, Chicago, Seattle and Tokyo.