Mary Hagy Fine Art

MARY HAGY
One of the regions most collected artists; Mary Hagy has spent a lifetime among the rural landscapes she so vividly brings to life. Her bucolic scenes are considered by her patrons to be among the most enduring of art. She works exclusively in oils, and executes her paintings guided by the highest standards of excellence. She was first inspired and studied the work of British landscape painter John Constable. She later discovered and was influenced by the great masters of the Hudson River School. She is widely recognized for her luminous landscapes often featuring water. Collectors are captivated by the outstanding impasto treatment, technical skills and her love of detail. Her innate understanding of light, atmosphere and space has lead to the creation of a classic, timeless body of work.
Born in Kentucky in 1950 to a carpenter father and seamstress mother, she demonstrated an artistic ability at an early age. This creativity was nurtured in her blacksmith grandfather’s backyard shop where she spent countless hours at his knee as a tiny apprentice. Fascinated by the tools and dark sooty building, she quickly gathered a bag of used nails from the floor and started work of her own, designing and building a hutch for her pet rabbit. “One of my first memories is of straightening out bent nails on a concrete block step and dreaming of a bag of new ones someday. I haven't stopped creating yet and believe an artistic spirit will flow through many areas of interest, and found my true calling when I began painting.” A severe injury to her arm in 1988 almost ended her career as an artist. Unable to hold a brush for 2 years and never giving thought of not painting again, she used the time to further study her craft. Retraining herself to paint, she felt her work had grown due to the intensive studies during her rehabilitation and felt reaffirmed it was meant to be that she paint.
“I have often wondered if it is by fate or coincidence that the scenery of my native area so closely resembles the work of the early painters I admire. It was love at first sight when I was exposed to the landscapes of long ago, and I have never had a desire to experiment with other styles. The same was true of my choice of medium, I started with oils and it did what I wanted. I received my first commission before I finished my first painting, an ambitious undertaking to copy John Constable’s “Salisbury Cathedral” that I had found in a lib