Mary Callery

Mary Callery (1903-1977) was born and studied in New York City. Before moving to Paris in 1930 Callery studied at the Art Student’s League from 1921-25. While in Paris Callery began to collect by her peers, Picasso, Duchamps, Matisse, and simultaneously encouraged other Americans to begin collecting contemporary art. When WWII broke out, Callery returned to the United States and settled again in New York. Callery proved to be essential to the development and growth of ULAE after meeting the Grosmans through the dealer/publisher Curt Valentin. In turn she introduced the Grosmans to Fritz and Lucie Glarner, and William S. Lieberman, the Museum of Modern Art curator who helped to establish the Bartos Fund. This fund, patronized by Mr. and Mrs. Armand Bartos, who Callery summered with on Long Island, enabled MoMA to purchase ULAE prints for many years.

During these initial years, ULAE primarily published reproductions, but with the support of Liberman, Mrs. Grosman changed her direction to original designs. It is though by many the Mary Callery was the first artist to print original work at ULAE. Callery’s first edition with ULAE, Sons of Morning, was completed in 1955. The paper that Callery’s second edition, Variations on a Theme of “Callery-Léger”, was printed on was called the “Callery gray” was used by Mrs. Grosman for the studio’s first printed labels, and is still the trademark gray ULAE uses today.