Mary Fuller (sculptor)

Mary Fuller (sculptor)
Mary Fuller McChesney (October 20, 1922 – May 4, 2022) was an American sculptor and art historian. She was a 1975 National Endowment for the Arts fellow.
Early life and education
McChesney was born to Robert Fuller and Karen Rasmussen on October 20, 1922, in Wichita, Kansas and grew up in Stockton, California after moving there at age two with her family. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied philosophy with Paul Marhenke.
Leaving before graduating, she became a welder in the Richmond, California shipyard, during World War II, and potter at California Faience.
Career
She started a ceramics business of her own, along with her partner Avrum "Bill" Rubenstein: "Two Fish Pottery". She held her first solo art show, of paintings and clay sculptures, Artists’ Guild Gallery (an artists’ co-op) in San Francisco. Through her association with The Artists' Guild Gallery, she became acquainted with a wide variety of her contemporary artists, including Hassel Smith, Ed Corbett, Emmy Lou Packard, Robert P. McChesney, George Goya, John Hultbert, Clyfford Still, and Ad Reinhardt.
She married Robert McChesney in December 1949; they lived in the North Bay area. They moved to Sonoma Mountain in Sonoma County near Petaluma, California in 1952, after living in Mexico for a year, and lived and worked there through Robert McChesney's death in 2008, after which Mary remained there, continuing to work, until the late 2010s. During their time in Guadalajara, Mexico, she began writing seriously, publishing a story in "New Story," and embarking upon writing mystery novels, publishing her first in 1953. She also began writing articles for Art Digest, then for Artforum.
She experimented with different sculpture formats, including wood and stone, before developing the cement mixed with vermiculite that she used for the majority of her work. She received her first public art commission for a work in Salinas, followed by her work for San Francisco General Hospital and many subsequent commissions.
Fuller died at an assisted living facility in Petaluma, California on May 4, 2022, at the age of 99. The research materials for her books are held at the Archives of American Art.
List of public artwork
1974 “Dos Leones,” San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, California
1975 “Temko Lions,” Frenso Avenue, Berkeley, California
1975 Children’s Sculpture Park, Salinas Community Center, Salinas, California
1977 Falcon Andrew Hill High School, San Jose, California
1978 “Yuba Totem,” Yuba Lion California Arts Council Award for the Department of Motor Vehicles Building, Yuba City, California
1992 “Gualala Shakti,” Gualala, California
1982 “Tot-Lot,” Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California
1983 “Olympic Lions,” Squaw Valley, California
1983 “Stratford Memorial Lion & Bear,” Petaluma Library, Petaluma, California
1984 “Anshen-Mays Garden Sculptures,” Sausalito, California
1985 “Earth, Air, Sea,” West Side Pump Station, San Francisco, California
1988 Random Ridge Winery Gate, Napa, California
1986 Robinson Totem, Santa Rosa, California
1987 Playground Sculptures, Los Angeles State Office Bldg., Los Angeles, California
1989 Rebecca Hirsch Totem, Mill Valley, California
1993 “Seacliff Park Benches,” Santa Cruz, California
1994 “Broadway Plaza Totem,” Walnut Creek, California
1996 “Portsmouth Square Lions,” San Francisco, California
1997 “Peace Totem,” Cape Cod, Massachusetts
1999 Sogin Wall, Occidental, California
2001 Becky Temko Park, Berkeley, California
2001 Rainbow Ridge, Reno, California
2002 Annex Gallery Fountain, Santa Rosa, California
2003 Petaluma Animal Shelter Sculpture, Petaluma, California
2019 Three Outdoor Sculptures, Petaluma Library, Petaluma, California
Writing
A Period of Exploration: San Francisco 1945–1950 Oakland Museum, 1973, OCLC 754950
Under pen-names:
Rayter, Joe (mysteries)
The Victim Was Important New York, Scribner, 1954, OCLC 9526317
Asking for Trouble New York : M.S. Mill and W. Morrow, 1955, OCLC 317837980
Stab In the Dark New York, M.S. Mill and W. Morrow, 1955, OCLC 2978566
Franklin, Melissa
Courier of Desire San Diego, Greenleaf Classics, 1969, OCLC 657708966
Murder In Her Thighs San Diego, Corinth Publications, 1969, OCLC 666424742
Nymphs, Horses, and Athletes New York, Ophelia Press, 1979, OCLC 157135
Putting on the Dog San Diego, Greenleaf Classics, 1971, OCLC 874768193
References
External links
Oral history interview with Mary Fuller McChesney, 1994 Sept. 28, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
http://calabigallery.com/mary-fuller-mcchesney/
City of Berkeley, CA, "Cat and Dog" sculpture description
FulMac Foundation: Mary Fuller McChesney bio
1922 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American historians
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American women artists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women artists
American art historians
American women historians
Artists from Stockton, California
Artists from Wichita, Kansas
Historians from California
National Endowment for the Arts Fellows
Sculptors from California
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Women art historians
20th-century American women sculptors