Elizabeth Murray (American, 1940–2007) is a Neo-Expressionist painter particularly known for her unconventionally-shaped canvases, and significant role in revitalizing painting during an era dominated by Conceptual Art. Born in Chicago, Murray spent much of her childhood sketching and drawing. In 1958, she entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to become a commercial artist, but her fascination with the Institute’s The Plate of Apples (1877) by Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906) inspired her to pursue painting instead. She went on to receive a MFA from Mills College in California in 1964. In the Post-Modern fashion, Murray’s work rejected Minimalism and attempted to revive concepts of narrative and identity in art. Children Meeting (1978) reflects her ability to convey meaning through geometric and biomorphic forms, an idea also manifested through her use of irregularly-shaped canvases. During the 1980s, she experimented even further by utilizing multiple, adjoining, or overlapping canvases in pieces such as Painters’ Progress (1981). In the late 1980s and 1990s, Murray received a number of awards for her work, including the Skowhegan Medal in Painting in 1986 and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award in 1999. In the 1990s and 2000s, Murray designed large-scale mosaic murals for the subway stations at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, and the 23rd Street-Ely Avenue station in Queens. MoMA also honored her in 2006 with a retrospective spanning her 40 year career, a distinction given only to three other women artists: Louise Bourgeois (American/French, 1911–2010) in 1982, Lee Krasner (American, 1908–1984) in 1984, and Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011) in 1989. Her paintings today hang in many important American museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.