Premio Combat Prize

Artist in Residence
In conjunction with the Oak Park Art League’s “Moveable Feast” exhibition, the League’s current artist-on-residence, Margot McMahon, launched the ARTifact Invitational, which merged the study of historical artifacts with contemporary art-making practice. This initiative encouraged artists to create original works that were inspired by and formed a dialogue with objects, orna- ments, or architecture found in Oak Park.
Margot’s contribution to this project was her sculptural portrayal of a youthful Ernest Hemingway as he was writing A Farewell to Arms. The sculpture sought to bond man and machine by engaging Hemingway with a Corona #3 typewriter. Hemingway’s wife, Hadley, had given him that model of type- writer as a gift, and Hemingway composed many of his works from the early 1920s on it.” [Review excerpt by Sindelar]
Margot met with teen and elementary students in the residency studio to regularly show them the process of sculpting in clay on an armature. She read Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” with her twenty-five year book group to research and discuss the authors’s first novel. Young Chicago Authors founder, Bob Boone facilitated a writing workshop for young creatives to write a response to the exhibition and residency art on July 9th. On July 16th, participating writers read their papers, poems of spoken word to be judged for publication in The Write City magazine. An adult writing chain letter was created in the spirit of Ernest Hemingway with reference to various novels. The finished chain letter was published on the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website.
”Cultural Families” sculpture and drawing exhibition by Margot McMahon; Friday, June 16th, 2017 at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts. 1) Native Son: Richard Wright, balancing on his professionalism on a 4’ high white pedestal, 2) Farewell to Arms: Ernest Hemingway as he writes ”A Farewell to Arms” by a ceramic Corona 3 typewriter and pulls away from the cast shadow of a gun indicating creativity is a solution to the horrors of war 3) Prairie Roots: Alice Hayes in a house-like frame symbolizing Ragdale Foundation’s Shaw home, On the marble mantle are figures interacting with the earth at different ages, Alice’s poetry is hung in gold frames. Below, a casting of the prairie path with deer, dog and human prints and Margot’s drawing of family roots, tangled, strong and reaching.  This exhibition informed the upcoming sculpture of 4) ”Oracle of Bronzeville: Gwendolyn Brooks Monument that was dedicated in Brooks Park June 7th 2018. It is the first African American portrait in Chicago Parks.
About the Artist
The figure and organic form interpreted in geometric rhythms are what Margot McMahon models in clay and casts in metal and concrete, welds in steel or carves in stone. Her work is a rhythm of lights and shadows playing over textured surfaces of forms which refer to the every person as the hero. She has been called the Studs Terkel of the sculpting world for her humanistic interpretations. Captured in seated poses or walking stances, her forms speak to us of both the endurance and the fragile nature of the human spirit.
​Margot McMahon’s drawings and sculptures are in collections and exhibitions in Tokyo, Guernsey, Paris, Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Santa Fe, Cincinnati, Texas, and Connecticut. Her works are in the collections of The Smithsonian, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Botanic Garden and DePaul University. Margot has taught sculpture and drawing at the School of the Art Institute, DePaul University, Yale University and Yale University’s Norfolk Summer School. Her art video From a Ball of Clay can be ordered from Cinema Guild, NYC. Also an author, Margot’s book A Gift of Art (Amazon) is the culmination of her experience teaching art workshops for children in public schools, high school and adults in art centers. Margot has been a board member of Illinois National Museum of Women in the Arts, Chicago Sculpture International and the Oak Park Area Arts Council. She is a founder of Village of Oak Park’s Public Art Advisory Commission, Ragdale Foundation’s Cornerstone Fund and Yale Alumni Art League. Margot serves on the Board of Directors for Ragdale Foundation, The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, Yale Chicago and is Presdent of YaleWomen Chicago. For more information: margotmcmahon.com
*Corona #3 typewriter courtesy of Pieritz Bros. Supply, Oak Park