Mario Moore

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Mario Moore (b. 1987) lives and works in Detroit, Michigan. Moore received a BFA in Illustration from the College for Creative Studies (2009) and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art (2013). He received a prestigious Princeton Hodder Fellowship (2018-19) at Princeton University and has participated as an artist-in-residence at Knox College, Fountainhead residency and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

Moore’s work has afforded him many opportunities — from multiple exhibitions and featured articles including the New York Times. His work is in several public and private collections which include the Detroit Institute of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem and Princeton University Art Museum. Moore’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including The Smart Museum, Chicago; the Smithsonian Museum traveling Sites Exhibition; Xavier University Art Gallery, New Orleans; the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI; David Klein Gallery, Detroit; and the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, New York. He will have a solo survey exhibition at the Charles H. Wright Museum, Detroit, in 2021.

During his Hodder Fellowship year, Moore created etchings, drawings and large-scale paintings of black men and women who work at or around the Princeton campus in blue collar jobs. The acclaimed exhibition, The Work of Several Lifetimes, was on display in the Hurley Gallery at the Lewis Arts complex in Princeton, New Jersey, from September 19 through November 17, 2019.

“Four new portraits serve as ‘visible expression of Princeton’ today” | Princeton University, Sept. 25, 2019

“‘A Fellow at Work’: Artist Mario Moore’s work presents black campus workers in new light” | Princeton University, Oct. 15, 2019

Video: “Princeton University portraits give campus workers the spotlight” | CBS News, Dec. 30, 2019; CBS This Morning Twitter highlight

“Princeton University is hanging a series of portraits that honor its blue-collar campus workers” | WTKR, Jan. 1, 2020

Video: “Canteen workers honoured alongside US presidents” | BBC, Jan. 2, 2020

“Princeton University to Display Portraits of Campus Workers” | Diverse Education, Jan. 2, 2020

“Princeton University Acquires Portrait Series Honoring Its Campus Workers” | Observer, Jan. 3, 2020

“Princeton University is hanging a series of portraits that honor its blue-collar campus workers” | CNN, Jan. 6, 2020

“Most Paintings on Princeton’s Campus Are of Dead White Men. But One Artist Is Adding Equally Grand Portraits of Its Cooks and Cleaners” | ArtNet News, Jan. 8, 2020

“Princeton artist paints portraits of blue-collar African American workers” | New Jersey News 12, January 15, 2020

“Princeton artist-fellow Mario Moore celebrates African American workers” | The Art Newspaper, Jan. 20, 2020

“Portraits on campus lacked diversity, so this artist painted the blue-collar workers who ‘really run things’” | Washington Post, Jan. 24, 2020

“When this artist honored Princeton’s blue-collar workers, the university took notice” and Good Morning America Feature | ABC News, Feb. 24, 2020

The Work of Several Lifetimes exhibition catalog published June 8, 2021 | Buy on Amazon or purchase through Art Book

“A Painter Reflects on When Black Men Get to Rest” | Profile of Mario Moore in Hyperallergic, July 25, 2018

“Detroit Artists Jova Lynne and Mario Moore Question the Class and Racial Complexities of Leisure” | Document, August 6, 2018

“Mario Moore: Voice and Vibe in Gorgeous Realism” | Minus37, February 15, 2019

Activism in Academia III | Symposium at CUNY, April 10, 2019

“Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” | Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, August-December 2019

“Black and Blue: Portraits of America’s Working Class by Detroit Artist Mario Moore” | NPR Detroit, April 17, 2020

“Princeton University staff, faculty, others named honorary members by Class of 2020” | Princeton University News, June 10, 2020

Watch the recording with multi-language closed captioning: “In Conversation with Mario Moore and James Steward” | Princeton University Art Museum, July 7, 2020

Mario Moore special edition puzzle with Art X Puzzles  | December 2020

“23 Black Coffee-Table Books to Add to Your Collection” | New York magazine, June 3, 2021

Exhibition — Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit  — October 28, 2023 – March 3, 2024, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Mario Moore: Revolutionary Times — April 27-August 18, 2024, Grand Rapids Art Museum (Level 1 Galleries), 101 Monroe Center St NW, Grand Rapids, MI.

Watch Mark Thomas Gibson & Mario Moore in Conversation, hosted by New Art Dealers Alliance, February 2021.