What do you get when you merge Vogue magazine with the Abstract Expressionists and our Founding Fathers? Shuffle them hard and you get Mary Abbott, a quintessential American: exceptional but unsung artist of the Abstract Expressionists’ New York School, progeny of John and John Quincy Adams, and Deb of the Year, not to mention cover girl for Vogue, for Charm, and for Glamour Magazine, right on the heels of that flamboyant debutante, Brenda Frazier.
Why a quintessential American? Certainly not because she was a glamour girl or a socialite, not even because she is a descendent of presidents with a Mayflower pedigree. No, Mary Abbott is a quintessential American because she fought the stigma of her Katherine Hepburn beauty, her Walden Pond heritage, and the 1940s and ‘50s era that catered to homemakers — you remember the young smiling red-lipsticked, apron-clad prototype, that ‘40 and ‘50 woman busily baking in her kitchen — to become one of the most talented artists to ever grace the Abstract Expressionist Movement. Work, that’s what it took. Resistance to pressure. Remember John Adams going up against England and King George? Just see what Mary Abbott’s ancestor accomplished! Think how proud he would be of Mary today, a woman who devoted her life to her art, finishing works that rival those of her great love and compatriot, Willem de Kooning, pieces of art that hang next to de Kooning’s, represented in major museums throughout Adams’ legacy — America.
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