Snyder first gained public attention in the early 1970s with her gestural and elegant "stroke paintings," which used the grid to deconstruct and retell the story of
abstract painting. By the late seventies, Snyder had abandoned the formality of the grid. She began more explicitly incorporating symbols and text, as the paintings took on a more complex materiality. These early works were included in the 1973 and 1981
Whitney Biennials and the 1975
Corcoran Biennial.
Often referred to as an autobiographical or confessional artist, Snyder's paintings are narratives of both personal and communal experiences.[2] Through a fiercely individual approach and persistent experimentation with technique and materials,[3] Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting, inspiring generations of emerging artists.
In 1969, Snyder married photographer
Larry Fink. She gave birth to their daughter, Molly, in 1979. They were divorced in 1985.[5] Her grandson Elijah was born in 2012.
In 2011, Snyder married her partner of 28 years, Margaret Cammer, a retired New York State Acting Supreme Court Judge and the former NY Deputy Administrative Judge of The New York City Civil Court.
Work
While living on a New Jersey farm in 1962, Snyder worked in a studio on the
Raritan River in
New Brunswick, creating some of her earliest paintings of farm and landscape scenes, as well as expressionist portraits. In the mid to late 60's she was working explicitly with the idea of female sensibility, using materials in her paintings such as lentil seeds, flocking, thread, glitter and gauze. Snyder describes her processes involving non-art materials as a type of ritual act for the painting.[4] Snyder's ideas often take form in her paintings through other means other than paint such as music, poetry and words to further push the intent of her pieces.[4] These works eventually led to Snyder's seminal stroke paintings in the late 60's and early '70's. Snyder worked alongside artists such as
Mary Heilmann,
Jennifer Bartlett and
Harriet Korman during the 1960s, all of whom were attempting to bring more process into their art making.[6]
Stroke paintings
Creek Square (1974) at the
National Gallery of Art in 2022, an example of the artist's stroke paintings.
In the early 1970s, Snyder began to explore paint as subject, reconstructing abstract painting through gestural strokes on canvas over a gridded background. These paintings, more commonly known as her 'stroke' paintings, were included in the 1973 and 1981
Whitney Biennials as well as the
Corcoran Biennial in 1975.
Following the stroke paintings in the mid 70s, Snyder's work once again revisited female sensibility and the work more vigorously explored materiality. By the late 70s she abandoned the formality of the grid and began to more explicitly incorporate symbols and text in her paintings.[7]
The feminist movement
In 1971, Snyder founded the Mary H. Dana Women Artist Series, "the oldest continuous running exhibition space in the United States dedicated to making visible the work of emerging and established contemporary women artists."[8]