Marianna Pineda

Marianna Packard was born in 1925, in Evanston, Illinois. Born with the surname Packard, Pineda renamed herself after watching Frederico Garcia Lorca's play about Mariana Pineda, the 19th century liberal heroine executed for helping her revolutionary lover escape execution.

She made her first plasticine torso by eight years old, was teaching a summer camp art class by age 15, as well as taking drawing lessons on the weekend. She attributed her early interest in sculpture to the many she saw at multiple World's Fair visits, as well as on travels with her mother to Greece and Egypt, both places where sculpture dominates.

She studied with Carl Milles in the summer of 1942 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art; with Simon Moselsio, 1942–1943 at Bennington College; with Raymond Puccinelli from 1943–1945 at the University of California, Berkeley; with Oronzio Maldarelli from 1945–1946 at Columbia University; and with Ossip Zadkine in Paris from 1949–1950.

Pineda developed her sense of adventure by traveling with her mother in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and to such far-flung places as Galapagos, the Marquesans, Polynesia and New Guinea. It was on trips to Greece and Egypt where Pineda first became entranced by sculpture,[2] and not only became a sculptor herself, but also married sculptor Harold Tovish.[3][4]

Marianna Pineda died November 24, 1996 of pancreatic cancer at her home in Boston.[5]

Slaughter Gallery, San Francisco, 1951, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1952, Currier Gallery, Manchester, NH, 1954, De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, 1954, Premier Gallery, Minneapolis, 1963, Swetzoff Gallery, Boston, 1953, 56, 64, Honolulu Academy Art, 1970, Alpha Gallery, Boston, 1972, Newton College, MA, 1972, Bumpus Gallery, Duxbury, MA, 1972, Contemporary Art Center, Honolulu, 1982, Hanalei Palace, Kona, HI 1982, Lyman House Museum, Hilo, HI, 1982, Pine Manor College, MA, 1984, Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, 1990, 93, 94, College of William and Mary, 1992, Wiggins Gallery, Boston Public Library, 1993.

Pineda became a member of the Sculptors Guild, in 1952, and the National Sculpture Society in 1985. She was also a member of the National Academy of Design: In 1982 she was elected an Associate, and in 1990 she was elected an Academician.[10]

She was awarded a gold medal by the National Academy of Design in 1987 and 1988. She was similarly awarded gold medals and prizes in 1986, 1988 and 1991 by the National Sculpture Society. The Art Institute of Chicago also awarded her a prize at the 62nd American Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in 1957.[10]

• Faxon, Alicia and Sylvia Moore. Pilgrims and Pioneers: New England Women in the Arts. New York City, New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0960247660
• Hills, Patricia. Marianna Pineda: Sculpture 1949 to 1969. Boston, MA: Alabaster Press, 1996. ISBN 0965431509
• Watson-Jones, VA. Contemporary American Women Sculptors. Oryx Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0897741392
• Rubenstein, Charlotte S. American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1990. ISBN 978-0816187324
• Kitaj, Karma. Women Who Could...and Did: Lives of 26 Exemplary Artists and Scientists. Chestnut Hill, MA: Huckle Hill Press, 2002. (Print) ISBN 978-0971595729 / (Audiobook) 2015. ASIN: B00SXIUVD2
• Doherty, Maggie (2020). The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s. Vintage. ISBN 9780525434603.

• Oral history interview with Marianna Pineda, 1977 May 26-June 14, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
• Marianna Pineda papers, 1943-1998, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution