Lost works of Mavis Pusey reunited in Los Angeles survey
More than 60 paintings, prints and drawings by Jamaican artist Mavis Pusey (1928-2019) go on show in Los Angeles on 11 October.
The exhibition, Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images, is the first major museum survey of her work, according to The Art Newspaper. It runs at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles from 11 October to 28 February 2027.
The show brings together oil paintings, etchings, silkscreens and drawings in graphite and marker. Many of the works had vanished from view. Tracking them down meant following old labels, lot numbers and paperwork across decades.
The survey opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia in 2025. That presentation was curated by Hallie Ringle and Kiki Teshome and featured over 60 artworks, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia says.
For Los Angeles, curator Jessi DiTillio has rehung the show. The thematic sections used in Philadelphia become chronological chapters. Visitors walk through Pusey's career in order.
It was a long career. Pusey worked for 50 years as an artist, designer, writer and educator, the Hammer Museum says. She is known for geometric abstraction, art built from hard-edged shapes, lines and city-like grids.
Her path was not straight. In the early 1960s she lived in New York and aimed to become a full-time fashion designer. She later shifted to painting and printmaking, and kept drawing the movement and construction of cities.
What makes this stand out is scale. No museum had previously pulled this much of her work into one place. For a first-time viewer, it is a chance to see the full range in a single visit.
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles will hold a Member Preview before the public opening. A Lunchtime Art Talk on the exhibition will be led by DiTillio, who serves as a curatorial assistant at the museum.
