Harmony Hammond
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Biography
Harmony Hammond (b.1944) is an artist, writer, and curator. A leading figure in the development of the feminist art movement in New York in the early 1970s, she attended the University of Minnesota from 1963–67, before moving to New York in 1969. She was a co-founder of A.I.R., the first women’s cooperative art gallery in New York (1972) and Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art & Politics (1976). Since 1984, Hammond has lived and worked in northern New Mexico, teaching at the University of Arizona, Tucson, from 1989–2006. Hammond’s earliest feminist work combined gender politics with post-minimal concerns of materials and process, frequently occupying a space between painting and sculpture.
For years, she has worked with found and repurposed materials and objects such as rags, straw, latex rubber, hair, linoleum, roofing tin, and burnt wood as well as buckets, gutters and water troughs as a means of introducing content to the world of abstraction. Hammond’s near-monochrome paintings of the last two decades participate in the narrative of modernist abstraction at the same time they insist on an oppositional discourse of feminist and queer content. Their focus on materiality and the indexical, suggesting topographies of body and place, derives from and remains in conversation with her feminist work of the 1970s. A second ongoing series of overtly political work in various media ranging from bronze sculpture to digital prints, deals with issues of intolerance, censorship, and self-censorship.
A survey exhibition of Hammond’s work, Material Witness, Five Decades of Art, was presented in 2019 at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT, and traveled to the Sarasota Art Museum, Ringling College of Art and Design, FL in 2020. Other one-person exhibitions of her work include Big Paintings 2002–2005, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM (2005); Monster Prints, SITE Santa Fe, NM (2002); and Ten Years 1970–1980, Glen Hanson Gallery and W.A.R.M, Minneapolis, NM (1981), among others. Her work has also been included in many group exhibitions, including Women in Abstraction, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2021), traveled to Guggenheim Museo Bilbao, Spain (2021); Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019); Wack!: Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2007), traveled to National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2007); MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2008); and Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia (2008), among others.
Hammond’s work is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; Phoenix Art Museum, AZ; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2014); the Lifetime Achievement Award, Women’s Caucus for Art (2014); the Distinguished Feminist Award, College Art Association (2013); Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship (2007 and 1989); and Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (1998), among others. Hammond’s book, Wrappings: Essays on Feminism, Art and the Martial Arts (1984), is a foundational publication on 1970s feminist art. Her groundbreaking book Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History (2000) received a Lambda Literary Award and remains the primary text on the subject. Her archive is housed at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA.
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Exhibitions
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Harmony Hammond
Accumulations 27 April - 10 June 2023 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presented Harmony Hammond: Accumulations, the artist’s sixth exhibition with the Gallery. The show featured a selection of paintings from the last three years that continue...Read more -
"A sheet of paper casts a shadow."
16 September - 30 October 2022 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates, Germantown presents 'A sheet of paper casts a shadow.” This group exhibition features a selection of works on paper by six Gallery artists, Ricardo Brey, Luis Camnitzer,...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Monotypes 22 July - 11 September 2022 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates, Germantown presents Harmony Hammond: Monotypes. This exhibition follows the evolution of Hammond’s monotypes, featuring a selection of works from three series that trace her deep engagement with...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Crossings 12 November 2020 - 30 January 2021 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presented Crossings, its fourth exhibition of work by Harmony Hammond (b.1944). Featuring paintings dating from 2018—2020, the show’s large-scale canvases boast built-up surfaces that further...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Bandaged Grid #5 25 May - 25 June 2019 GermantownAlder & Co., 222 Main Street, Germantown NY 12526 Hours: Friday – Sunday 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM Harmony Hammond’s Bandaged Grid series (2015-Present) develops out of the artist’s Near...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Inappropriate Longings 19 April - 25 May 2018 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented its third exhibition of work by Harmony Hammond (b.1944), Harmony Hammond: Inappropriate Longings. Featuring an installation and a selection of mixed media paintings and works on...Read more -
Haptic
7 July - 12 August 2016 New YorkHaptic: of or relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception. Alexander Gray Associates presented...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
19 May - 25 June 2016 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented its second exhibition of work by Harmony Hammond (b.1944), including paintings, monotypes and ink drawings dating from 2014 to the present. A pioneer of feminist and...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
23 October - 7 December 2013 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented its inaugural exhibition with Harmony Hammond, her first one-person exhibition in New York since the 1990s. Emphasizing Hammond’s long-standing commitment to process-based abstraction, the exhibition includes...Read more -
Broken Spaces: Cut, Mark, and Gesture
27 February - 6 April 2013 New YorkBroken Spaces: Cut, Mark, and Gesture Luis Camnitzer Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe Harmony Hammond Lorraine O'Grady Hassan Sharif Jack Whitten Inaugurating its representation of Harmony Hammond, Alexander Gray Associates presented Broken Spaces:...Read more
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Public Collections
Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Bartlett Center for the Visual Arts, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Denver Art Museum, CO
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY
Leslie-Lohman Museum, New York, NY
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
New Mexico Arts, State Public Art Collection, NM
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
Orlando Museum of Art, FL
Phoenix Art Museum, AZ
Rendez-vous International Sculpture Site, Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, Providence, RI
Roswell Museum, NM
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA
St. Thomas More Chapel, Fordham University, Bronx, NY
Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Tucson Museum of Art, AZ
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York -
News / Events
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Harmony Hammond: FRINGE
SITE SANTA FE February 28–May 19, 2025Harmony Hammond's solo exhibition, FRINGE at SITE SANTA FE, Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be on view from February 28–May 19, 2025. SITE SANTA FE'S...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery of Canada November 8, 2024–March 2, 2025Harmony Hammond is included in the group exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, on view from November...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Vital Signs: Artist and the Body at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York November 3, 2024–February 22, 2025Harmony Hammond is included the group exhibition, Vital Signs: Artist and the Body at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, on view from...Read more -
Harmony Hammond, Carrie Moyer, and Joan Semmel
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) October 27, 2024–April 20, 2025Carrie Moyer, Harmony Hammond, and Joan Semmel are included in the group exhibition, Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection at the Berkeley...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at Stedelijk Museum September 14, 2024–January 5, 2025Harmony Hammond is in the group exhibition, Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, on view from September 14,...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Off-Center: New Mexico Art, 1970-2000 at New Mexico Museum of Art June 8, 2024–May 4, 2025Harmony Hammond is included in the group exhibition, Off-Center: New Mexico Art, 1970-2000 at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe. The New Mexico...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
2024 Whitney Biennial: Even Better Than The Real Thing at Whitney Museum of American Art March 20–August 11, 2024Harmony Hammond is among the 71 participating artists in the 2024 Whitney Biennial entitled Even Better Than The Real Thing, on view through August 11,...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at The National Gallery of Art March 17–July 28, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in the group exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
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Harmony Hammond
Unravel The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at Barbican Center February 13–May 26, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Unravel The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at the Barbican Center in London, United Kingdom.
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Harmony Hammond
Tracing Lineage: Abstraction and its Aftermath at the Bruce Museum November 18, 2023–March 17, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Tracing Lineage: Abstraction and its Aftermath at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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Harmony Hammond
Out West: Gay and Lesbian Artists in the Southwest 1900–1969 at the New Mexico Museum of Art November 11, 2023–September 2, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Out West: Gay and Lesbian Artists in the Southwest 1900–1969 at the New Mexico Museum of Art,...Read more -
Harmony Hammond, Carrie Moyer, and Joan Semmel
Making Their Mark Curated by Cecilia Alemani at Shah Garg Foundation November 2, 2023—March 23, 2024Harmony Hammond, Carrie Moyer, and Joan Semmel are included in a group exhibition, Making Their Mark Curated by Cecilia Alemani at the Shah Garg Foundation, New York.
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Harmony Hammond
Remix: The Collection at the National Museum Of Women in The Arts October 21, 2023–October 21, 2025Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Remix: The Collection, at the National Museum Of Women in The Arts in Washington, D.C., on view...Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Fluid Gaze at 516 Arts September 30–December 30, 2023Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Fluid Gaze at the 516 Arts, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Harmony Hammond
Shadow and Light at New Mexico Museum of Art September 23, 2023–April 28, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in a group exhibition, Shadow and Light at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Harmony Hammond
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at Los Angeles County Museum of Art September 17, 2023–January 21, 2024Harmony Hammond is included in the group exhibition Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California.
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Harmony Hammond and Joan Semmel
It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at Brooklyn Museum June 2–September 24, 2023Harmony Hammond and Joan Semmel are included in the group exhibition It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.
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Harmony Hammond
In Conversation with Ksenia M. Soboleva at The Brooklyn Rail 22 May 2023Harmony Hammond joins The Brooklyn Rail contributor Ksenia M. Soboleva for a conversation, concluding with a poetry reading by Timmy Straw.
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Harmony Hammond
Queer Threads, curated by John Chaich at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles 10 May 2023Harmony Hammond is included in the group exhibition Queer Threads, curated by John Chaich at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, CA.
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Harmony Hammond
In Conversation with Lucy Lippard at Lyndhurst 20 September 2022Harmony Hammond and writer and art critic Lucy Lippard will be in conversation reflecting upon the artists and artwork of the group exhibition Women's Work at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, NY.
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Harmony Hammond
The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900 at National Gallery of Art July 10–October 31, 2022Harmony Hammond included in the group exhibition The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C..
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Harmony Hammond
Women's Work at Lyndhurst May 26–September 26, 2022Harmony Hammond included in the group exhibition Women's Work at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, NY.
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Harmony Hammond and Jennie C. Jones
No Forms Curated by Margot Norton at Hill Art Foundation May 12–July 15, 2022Harmony Hammond and Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition No Forms curated by Margot Norton at Hill Art Foundation in New York.
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Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, and Joan Semmel
Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Paulson Fontaine Press at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts February 1–April 12, 2020Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, and Joan Semmel included in Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Paulson Fontaine Press at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.
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Articles / Reviews
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Harmony Hammond’s Ongoing Revolution
Hyperallergic9 June 2024 Everything I know about feminist art I’ve learned from Harmony Hammond, and for that, I feel incredibly lucky. Once a... Read more -
¡BIENVENIDOS, VLADEM! Coming home
Pasatiempo22 September 2023 Layers of midnight-toned Prussian blue oil paint suture the horizontal straps that Harmony Hammond wrapped around Cinch V, one of... Read more -
Harmony Hammond: Accumulations
The Brooklyn Rail5 June 2023 I am the kind of art historian who cannot detach the artwork from the person who made it: the body... Read more -
11 Art World Luminaries Share Their Top Picks from Frieze New York 2023
Galerie Magazine18 May 2023 The 11th edition of Frieze New York kicked off at The Shed in Hudson Yards this week with 68 galleries... Read more -
At Frieze New York 2023, One-Person Shows That Shine
The New York Times18 May 2023 At its debut in 2012, Frieze New York, a spinoff of Frieze in London, came off as an imperious enterprise.... Read more -
Shining a Light on the Art of the Printmaker
Hyperallergic4 April 2022 The Printer’s Proof: Artist and Printer Collaborations , currently on view at the Albuquerque Museum, delves into the exponentially intriguing... Read more -
Harmony Hammond: Women In Abstraction Guggenheim Bilbao
Artlyst2 December 2021 Artist/activist Harmony Hammond was born in Chicago in 1944 and is associated with the feminist art movement in New York... Read more -
4 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now
The New York Times30 December 2020 Harmony Hammond Through Jan. 16. Alexander Gray, 510 West 26th Street, Manhattan. 212-399-2636; alexandergray.com . For decades Harmony Hammond has... Read more -
Harmony Hammond breaks the rules and changes the game
Sarasota Herald-Tribune2 October 2020 The art game has many rules. Great artists like to break them. But to do that, you have to know... Read more -
The Year in Queer Art: Stonewall at 50 to the Future in Present Tense
ARTnews31 December 2019 What does Stonewall mean to you? It can be a fraught question, with as many answers as people who might... Read more -
This Artist Has Been Fuelling the Feminist Fire for Decades
Elephant Magazine31 October 2019 American artist, curator, author and activist Harmony Hammond was a trailblazer of the feminist art movement in the seventies, as... Read more -
Harmony Hammond, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Artforum1 October 2019 Harmony Hammond first laid out a case for abstraction in her 1977 essay “Feminist Abstract Art: A Political Viewpoint.” Building... Read more -
Harmony Hammond, Mary Quant, Alvaro Barrington, and More Must See London Shows
Whitewall17 September 2019 Harmony Hammond White Cube September 12—November 3 The artist, curator, author, and activist Harmony Hammond is recognized as a pivotal... Read more -
ARTnews In Brief: Hispanic Society Museum & Library to Develop New Architectural Plan, Christie’s to Host Aperture Fundraiser, and More from August 30, 2019
ARTnews26 August 2019 Harmony Hammond Retrospective Will Travel to Florida After its well-received debut earlier this year at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum... Read more -
Harmony Hammond’s Art Is Bold and Prickly as Ever
The New York Times8 August 2019 NYT Critic’s Pick RIDGEFIELD, Conn. — With all the hullabaloo around the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, it’s easy to forget... Read more -
First museum survey of the work of Harmony Hammond on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Art Daily1 August 2019 RIDGEFIELD, CONN .- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is presenting the first museum survey of the work of the trailblazing... Read more -
Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art
The Brooklyn Rail11 July 2019 In this long-overdue career survey, Harmony Hammond proves, if there were ever any doubt, that abstract art can be politically... Read more -
A Trailblazing Lesbian Artist Gets Her Due
Hyperallergic29 June 2019 touch me and let me touch you for the personal is political language waivers with desire it is skin with... Read more -
Going Beneath the Surface: For 50 Years, Harmony Hammond’s Art and Activism Has Championed Queer Women
ARTnews27 June 2019 S ix fabric sculptures appearing slightly larger than life size hang from the ceiling and graze the floor, inviting viewers... Read more -
Artists and Creatives Reflect on How Stonewall Changed Art
Artsy14 June 2019 It's been half a century since the fateful Saturday of June 28, 1969, when members of New York's gay community... Read more -
West by Southwest: Considering Landscape in Contemporary Art
Southwest Contemporary24 May 2019 Landscape painting: the passé genre that dominates so much of the world’s understanding of Southwest art. For me, first it... Read more -
Why So Many Artists Have Been Drawn to New Mexico
Artsy17 May 2019 Georgia O’Keeffe had an unexpected train detour to thank for her first encounter with New Mexico. Little did she know,... Read more -
Harmony Hammond
4 Columns10 May 2019 Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut, through September 15,... Read more -
Harmony Hammond
Art in America1 May 2019 THIS FOCUSED, handsomely installed retrospective of Harmony Hammond ’s work offers something of a corrective to perceptions of her career,... Read more -
10 Incredible U.S. Museum Exhibits to See This Summer
AFAR10 April 2019 This summer, add art to your U.S. travel itineraries with these exhibitions on medieval monsters, playful design, and the history... Read more -
Inside Out: Harmony Hammond’s Queer Art of Bondage
Frieze19 March 2019 There are few artists more overdue for attention than Harmony Hammond, the pioneering lesbian feminist whose first US institutional survey... Read more -
From Sally Mann to Jacopo Tintoretto, 7 Art Exhibitions You Won’t Want to Miss This Spring
Vogue1 March 2019 For art enthusiasts, the spring months positively teem with things to do and see. In Manhattan alone, the Armory Show,... Read more -
Harmony Hammond, Alexander Gray / New York
Flash Art26 May 2018 John Everett Millais’s Autumn Leaves, displayed at the Royal Academy in 1856, was understood as a radical departure from normative... Read more -
Harmony Hammond: Inappropriate Longings at Alexander Gray Associates
Arte Fuse18 May 2018 “Harmony Hammond: Inappropriate Longings,” currently on view at Alexander Gray Associates , offers the thrill of trespassing through abandoned property.... Read more -
Harmony Hammond at Artist Curated Projects
Contemporary Art Review22 March 2018 Harmony Hammond’s Erasing Censorship at Artist Curated Projects is a concise, cutting exhibition of reframed information, made up of works... Read more -
Harmony Hammond at Alexander Gray Associates, New York
ArtReview5 March 2018 The centrepiece of this exhibition of little-seen Harmony Hammond works from the 1990s is Inappropriate Longings, a significant installation composed... Read more -
Getty Research Institute Acquires Archive of Harmony Hammond
Artforum14 September 2016 The Getty Research Institute has announced that it has acquired the archive of American artist, writer, curator, and scholar Harmony... Read more -
HARMONY HAMMOND with Phillip Griffith
The Brooklyn Rail3 June 2016 Harmony Hammond made her start as an artist in the feminist milieu of 1970s New York, co-founding A.I.R. Gallery, the... Read more -
Queering Abstract Art with Wrapped, Grommeted, and “Roughed-Up” Paintings
Hyperallergic12 May 2016 In 2000, I came across a book in a Philadelphia bookstore that took my breath away. Lesbian Art in America:... Read more -
Review: The Harmony Hammond Show at RedLine Refutes Abstraction as Patriarchal
Denver Westword24 September 2014 A generation ago, in the latter third of the twentieth century, post-modernist deconstructionists were finished with abstraction. It was dead,... Read more -
Censorship and Vandalism: The Art of Harmony Hammond
Dissent Magazine17 October 2011 In her book Lesbian Art in America, Harmony Hammond writes that she has “always tried to work on the edge... Read more -
Interview with Harmony Hammond
We Who Feel Differently6 March 2011 An Interview with Harmony Hammond March 6, 2011 Harmony’s Studio in Galisteo, New Mexico Harmony Hammond: My name is... Read more -
Skins of Time: Elegies, A Lamentation of Loss and Suffering
NY Arts Magazine28 February 2005 Harmony Hammond creates Proustian layers of paint in the evolution of succeeding levels of the present tense. The present in... Read more -
ART IN REVIEW
The New York Times1 May 1998 'Lost and Found' Smack Mellon Studios 81 Washington Street Brooklyn Through May 22 The Smack Mellon Studios, in Brooklyn near... Read more
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