Chronology
1909: February 2, born New York City, daughter of Charles Augustus Paul Newman, a doctor, and Julia (MacIver) Newman, a librarian. Mother, of Scottish-Irish descent, retained maiden name which Loren adopted.
1919: Studies at Arts Students League, New York, Saturday Classes, for one year.
1929: Marries poet and critic Lloyd Frankenberg. Couple moves to Greenwich Village. Their second home on MacDougal Street is subject of Strunsky House, 1935
1931: First of ten consecutive summers spent on Cape Cod.
1935: First museum purchase, Shack, 1934, by Alfred Baar for Museum of Modern Art (accessioned 1938). Baar also acquires work for his own collection.
1936: Receives Federal Arts Project assignment; remains member until 1940.
1938: First one-person exhibition at Marian Willard’s East River Gallery. Catalogue statements written by John Erskine, John B. Flannagan, Morris Kantor and Holger Cahill.
1938: Spends winter in Key West, Florida.
1940: Pierre Matisse Gallery’s first exhibition of MacIver’s work. Matisse remains her dealer until 1990.
1941: Designs backdrops and lighting for Museum of Modern Art Coffee Concerts at invitation of Louise Crane. MacIver previously designed lighting for Virgil Thompson’s Four Saints in Three Acts.
1945: First one-person museum exhibition at Baltimore Museum of Art.
1946: Dorothy C. Miller includes MacIver’s work in Museum of Modern Art exhibition “Fourteen Americans;” travels to five venues.
1948: MacIver and Frankenberg travel to France, Italy, England, Ireland and Scotland. (Subsequent European trip made in 1954. Couple lives in France between 1961-64 and 1966-70).
1953: Whitney Museum of American Art organizes retrospective covering 20 years of work; venues include Dallas Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Art and Des Moins Art Center.
1957: Receives first prize in Corcoran Biennial.
1959: American Academy of Arts and Letters elects MacIver as member.
1960: Receives Ford Foundation Grant.
1962: Museum of Modern Art selects MacIver to exhibit 25 paintings in American Pavilion at the XXXI Biennale, Venice. Art Institute of Chicago awards Frank G. Logan Medal.
1963: Receives Urbana Purchase Prize, Krannert Art Museum.
1965: The Phillips Collection organizes its second one-person exhibition of MacIver’s work.
1966: Maintains a studio in Paris at Spends the first of four summers in Provenance, first at La Citadelle in Menerbes, home of John Rewald, and later in Le Castellet, Var.
1968: Musee des Beaux Arts, Lyons organizes exhibition Hommage a Loren MacIver; additional venues include Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris.
1972: Receives Rothko Foundation Award.
1975: Montclair Museum of Art organizes retrospective exhibition. MacIver’s husband Lloyd Frankenberg dies.
1983: Newport Harbor Art Museum (Orange County Museum of Art) organizes retrospective exhibition.
1985: Receives Francis Greenberger Award.
1989: Receives first Lee Krasner Award, Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
1992: Metropolitan Museum of Art acquires nine paintings by MacIver.
1998: MacIver continues to live and work in Greenwich Village in house Frankenberg
and she purchased in the late 1940s.
1998: May 3 MacIver dies peacefully at her home, 61 Perry Street, in Greenwich
Village, New York.
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D. C.
Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York
Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut