Mary Vernon on Teaching – and Listening to the Paint

About Mary Vernon

Mary Vernon, professor emerita of art in Meadows School of the Arts, joined SMU in 1967 after earning her B.F.A. in art history and M.A. in art and art history from the University of New Mexico. She served as chair of art history from 1979 to 1981 and chair of art from 1987 to 1995. Her drawing, painting and color theory courses fostered the careers of countless successful artists and curators. She was named Meadows Foundation Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1998, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2006 and received the Faculty Career Achievement Award in 2017. She also received a Moss-Chumley North Texas Artist Award, is a Fellow at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and was named the Dallas Art Fair Artist Honoree in 2017. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in France, Hungary, Chile and Kazakhstan and is included in collections of The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, The Belo Foundation, U.S. Department of State and Meadows Museum, as well as in many other corporate and private collections. In 2016, the Meadows School established the Mary Vernon Painting Prize in her honor, an annual award to help outstanding undergraduates launch their art careers.

8 thoughts on “Mary Vernon on Teaching – and Listening to the Paint

  1. Dear Dear Mary,
    A incredible achievement and stellar career and a great interview. I love you and miss the years we spent together on the faculty sharing a phone line, not to mention our conversations. Loved your dramatic presentation when I sat in on some of your lectures. I was proud to have taught at the first Taos campus and be part of that program. And Larry. I will always miss him. You were both very special to me. Keep those brushes primed. All my best,
    Richard Warner
    Former Assoc. Professor of Design

  2. Mary Vernon was my favorite professor at SMU. I remember in the mid-70’s standing in very long lines to get into your courses, back when you physically had to sign up in person for each course, at the peril of not making it into my other art school required courses. To this day I still have all my art history books and cherish them. Thank you for such an amazing journey as we traveled through art history. Memories I have not and will not forget. I am thrilled to hear that you are able to devote all of your time now to your art. Looking forward to your exhibition at Valley House this Fall. Best wishes.

  3. I was thrilled to see your exhibit posted—I have thought about you often after traveling to I think Italy together with SMU group a hundred years ago (1984?)with Diane ? Who was teaching in Masters of “Whatever You Wanted”. It was a marvelous trip but I done too many things since then to remember much more than elegant you!
    Karen Campbell

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