Dahlov Ipcar (1917–2017) Biography
Dahlov Ipcar (1917-2017) was born in Windsor, Vermont, and was raised in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Her parents, famous artists William and Marguerite Zorach did not believe in “art instruction”, and as a result Dahlov never attended art schools or art courses as a child. Instead, her parents sent her to some of the most progressive schools including City and Country, Walden, and Lincoln School of Teachers College.
Dahlov and her family spent many summers on the Maine Coast which provided her with an outlet to nature. She eventually married Adolph Ipcar, and moved to a small dairy farm in Georgetown, Maine, where she spent the rest of her life.
In 1939 she had her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the first of many solo shows over the next forty years. Dahlov’s works are now in the permanent collections of many important art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. She is also represented in all the leading art museums of Maine, as well as in many corporate and private collections throughout the country.
In 1939 Dahlov had her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, where she would end up having many more over the next 40 years of her career.
Dahlov’s works are now in the permanent collections of many important art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. She is also represented in all the leading art museums of Maine, as well as in many corporate and private collections throughout the country.
She would go on to write and illustrate 30 children books, including The Little Fisherman and Calico Jungle.
Dahlov has also completed ten large scale mural projects for public buildings, two for U.S. Post Offices in LaFollette, Tennessee and Yukon, Oklahoma. Her murals in Maine include the children’s room at the Patten Free Library in Bath, and a 106 ft. panorama of Maine animals in the Narragansett Elementary School, Gorham. Golden Savannah, a 21 ft. mural of African wildlife is currently installed in the atrium of the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in Springfield, Massachusetts.
In 1972, Dahlov received the Maine Governor’s Award for her contributions to Maine arts. She has also received three honorary degrees from The University of Maine, Colby, and Bates colleges. In April of 1998, The University of Minnesota awarded Dahlov with The Kerlan Award for Children’s literature. In 2012, The Farnsworth Museum gave Dahlov the Maine In America Award.
” I find it hard to explain my art, but then it doesn’t really need explanation. It may seem mysterious or challenging, but all you need to do is to open your heart to the joy and excitement of a new visual experience, to accept a new vision of a world full of the unusual, a world of the creative imagination. ” – Dahlov Ipcar
Dahlov continued painting in her studio until she passed away on February 10th, 2017 at the age of 99.