Discipline: Visual Art

Marvin Torffield

Discipline: Visual Art
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1988
Marvin Torffield works in sculpture, video, and sound sculpture to abstract paintings, photography, and furniture design. A graduate of the Pratt Institute and Yale University’s School of Art and Architecture (M.F.A.), he has had solo exhibits at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park, and the Carpenter Center for the Arts and Cert Gallery at Harvard University, to name but a few venues, and he designed 3-D light projections for the Rolling Stones’ 1989-90 world tour. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Artist’s Space and the Julian Pretto Gallery, both in New York City. Among his many honors are fellowships from MIT, Harvard University, the New York State Council for the Arts, the NEA, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and MacDowell. He also was an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Torffield has taught or lectured at universities throughout the Northeast, including Cooper Union, Bennington College, Harvard, Parsons School of Design, Alfred College of the Arts, and Yale University, as well as at the University of Arizona. In 2003, the Torffield Museum was established to showcase this artist’s work.

Studios

Cheney

Marvin Torffield worked in the Cheney studio.

Cheney Studio was given to MacDowell by Mrs. Benjamin P. Cheney and Mrs. Karl Kauffman. Like Barnard Studio, Cheney is a low, broadly massed bungalow. Sited on a steep westward slope, its porches are supported on wooden posts and fieldstone with lattices. Although it still retains its appealing character, the original design of the shingled building…

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