BIOGRAPHY of Sheila Marbain

Maurel Studios grew out of Maurel Press originated in 1955 by artists Sheila and Ary Marbain. It opened as a custom screen printing shop specializing in printing with contemporary artists.

Sheila had studied art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina with Joseph Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky and William deKooning from 1948 through 1950. Ary had worked and exhibited as a painter in France for many years. After the sudden death of Ary Marbain in 1963, the studio was closed for a year. Sheila then decided to modernize the workshop and introduce screen photography along with a new vacuume printing table.

Maurel Studios reopened on 23rd Street in Manhattan. With an assistant, Sheila plunged into printing three dimensional objects. A plexiglass airship for Lichtenstein, an Oldenburg soft drum set, a set of dominoes with Fahlstrom, and a large fabric banner with Marisol were some of the editions.

Sheila also did collaborative printing with Rauschenberg, Frankenthaler, Motherwell, Arakawa, Segal, Wegman, Shields, and many others. In 1990 she was honored with a 25 year master printers show at Rutgers Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

In January 1994, assisted by artist friends, Sheila developed a new monoprinting process utilizing the silk screen medium, yet enabling the artist to work directly on the silk using almost all of the drawing tools they are used to using on paper.