Mary Jo Schwalbach

Artist and Illustrator Mary Jo Schwalbach Gitler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1939. Schwalbach majored in fine arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and attended Pine Manor College. She then painted independently in Paris in 1961 and studied at the Alliance Francaise before settling in New York. She worked in the publicity department of the Museum of Modern Art from 1962 to 1969.

While she worked in a variety of media, especially notable are her three-dimensional sports assemblages, which she began creating in the late 1960s. During that time, her work was exhibited alongside artists such as Red Grooms, Claes Oldenberg, Marisol, Andy Warhol, Arman, George Bellows, Roy Lichtenstein, Leroy Neiman, Philip Pearlstein, and Duane Hanson. In addition to assemblage, painting, watercolors, and drawings, she has created illustrations for concert posters, album covers, magazine covers, articles, and more.