Meetings with the remarkable part 4

Maud Morgan

She was a painter and print maker and an artist in life. Read her auto-biography A Life in Art!

I met her when I lived in Cambridge, Mass. She was an important figure in the Boston art world and an inspiration to many. She had a great gift for friendship. At a certain point she established the Maud Morgan annual prize for a woman artist in mid-career. It was a cash prize and the MFA would also purchase a piece. The attention would truly help. I know some of the recipients, and the encouragement made a huge difference.

When I met her she was already coming up into her nineties. She was extraordinary. Despite illness she made collages up until the very end. Her life had been one long adventure which is probably what attracted me to her in the first place. Yet it was her person more than anything. She could laugh! She would be telling a story potentially quite sad and she would see the tragi-comic side of it and we would be laughing. She had a great gift for laughter which I wish I had!

She was another person in my life that died and I was a part of the process of her dying. I think sometimes that I have a role as a midwife to those I love in the transition from life into death. I have been there for my grandmother, Elka my "mother", Maud, Marti and Marianne. I will speak of them later.

Maud travelled widely and met the most interesting people of her generation and the generations after! She had stories to tell of fishing with Hemingway in Key West and living in Paris in the 30's.

At the end of her life she was pretty much housebound and yet there was a steady stream of visitors who came to see her every day. She was much loved. There is a Maud Morgan Visual Arts Center for the community in Cambridge in her neighbourhood. It is housed in a beautiful old coach house.

The main thing about someone like Maud is the gift of love. Not only the fact that they love you but that you can lavish love on them! Thank you Maud!