Born in Houston, Texas in 1951, Mary Fielding McCleary received her B.F.A., cum laude in printmaking/drawing at Texas Christian University and her M.F.A. in graphics from the University of Oklahoma. In 2011, she was named Texas Artist of the Year by the Art League of Houston. In 2019, she was named Texas 2-D Artist of the Year by the Texas Legislature. She is Regent’s Professor of Art Emeritus at Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, Texas, where she taught from 1975 to 2005. Since 1970, McCleary has participated in over 350 one-person and group exhibits in museums and galleries in 29 states, Mexico, Canada, and Russia. These venues include the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., MOBIA in New York City, the Grey Gallery at NYU, the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY, the Boston Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. She is also a recipient of a Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. Her work has been regularly reviewed or featured in the Houston Post, Houston Chronicle, Austin American Statesman, Dallas Morning News, and other Texas newspapers, as well as in national publications: Art in America, Art News, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Art Papers, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Art Week, Artspace, Texas Homes, New American Paintings, and Contemporanea International Arts Magazine. McCleary’s work is in many public collections including those of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, the El Paso Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont. She serves on the board of the Trinity Institute in Tehuacana, Texas and the Editorial Board of Image Journal. Mary McCleary is represented by Moody Gallery in Houston, Texas and Flatbed Press in Austin, Texas.
