After 30 years of a wildly successful illustrating career, artist Mary Grandpré has decided to try something completely different—abstract painting—and the results are making the contemporary art world take notice.
Mary Grandpré was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, but grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota. She’s the youngest of four children, and as the only introvert of the family, took to making art as a way to express herself freely and openly. Grandpré started drawing as early as she can remember, 3 or 4 years old, and recalls being proud of herself as she successfully copied characters from the Sunday funny papers. Part of her routine as a child in Catholic School was going to mass every day. This ritual made her anxious and somewhat scared, but the young Grandpré found solace in the towering stained glass windows, the rich colors, and the radiant saints and their stories. This became her oasis. Grandpré credits those images, colors, glowing shapes, and the storytelling aspect of image making, as well as the gathering and processing of visual information at a young age, as inspiration for the artistic work she’d do later in life, as an illustrator and now as an abstract painter.
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Grandpré’s early artwork was based on what she observed around her. In middle school, she began working with pastels and created portraits of wide-eyed children, something popular in the 60’s, selling some art at fairs and local art shows. Realistic portraits, still life, and landscapes followed as Grandpré experimented with oil painting and acrylics. When she was 13, her father made her an easel and a private studio in the basement. During high school, Grandpré continued to paint, including a mural in the library, and then proceeded to attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, majoring in illustration and painting. While freelancing, Grandpré developed a style she called “soft geometry”, as seen in her early illustration career in stylized figures and objects. Before becoming a children’s book illustrator, and then the acclaimed illustrator for the Harry Potter book series, Grandpré worked on editorial, magazine, and advertising campaigns with a variety of clientele.
Because her artistic output has now shifted away from illustration and toward abstract painting, Mary Grandpré’s process looks quite different than it once did. As an illustrator for the Harry Potter series and many other children’s picture books, Grandpré’s art began with finding solutions to the problems she was assigned—whether this was to visually tell an author’s story, cleverly portray a product, or put an editorial spin on something. This would be done by sketching out several ideas, storyboards, and concepts, often involving character development and inventing environments from whole cloth. Once her sketches were approved, Grandpré would proceed to color, either with pastels or mixed medium and collage. Today, as an abstract painter, Mary Grandpré works much differently. There is no art director to please and no marketing team to approve a concept or final product. This means that when she paints, Grandpré starts intuitively with no plan, working with loose layers of paint, slowly building shapes and colors, until a direction for the abstract work reveals itself. She likes the dreamworld this creates, allowing each viewer to see and feel something familiar, like they can walk into the art.
When Grandpré was young, Salvador Dalí was a main inspiration. The dreamlike quality of his work still speaks to her, as do the paintings of Edward Hopper for his mood and light, Richard Diebenkorn for his interpretation, and Fred Otnes for his mysterious figures using collage.
Grandpré loves drawing animals and giving them personality, and composing her artwork by balancing space, making colors pop, and creating a fascinating atmosphere—this is true both in making her abstract painting and while designing her home. When not painting, Mary Grandpré enjoys time with Britta, her sweet Pit mix pup, being in the kitchen cooking, working on interior design, and listening to jazz and soul music in her studio. She says these other passions inform her art-making in one way or another, sometimes in ways she doesn’t always realize in the moment!
Accomplishments
In addition to the world-renowned Harry Potter books, Mary Grandpré has illustrated over 20 picture books, created conceptual work on the animated film Antz, and did character design for the animated film Ice Age. Her list of awards and exhibitions is vast. Some of the highlights include:
- Caldecott Honor Award, 2015 / “The Noisy Paint Box”
- ABBA American Booksellers Book of the Year 1999 / Harry Potter Series Kirkus Notable Books
- Young Hoosier Book Award Nomination
- Art Academy/ Art2Life Online International Juried Show / 2018
- LightHouse Museum and Art Center, “Arrived” Jupiter, FL 2018
- ArtOrg / Northfield, Mn 2005 (solo exhibition)
- Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA.. 2008 ( solo exhibition)
- “Women In Illustration / Contemporary Visions and Voices” Norman
- Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass 2004
- Florida Artists Hall of Fame induction in In 2022
To inquire about collecting more artwork by Mary Grandpré, attend one of Park West’s online auction weekends or contact a sales associate at either sales@parkwestgallery.com or (866) 995-0904 ext. 4.
