MAIER

JOANN

Age 88, of Glenshaw, died suddenly, on April 30, 2025. Born August 21, 1936, in Pittsburgh, the younger daughter of Emma D. (Handte) and William J. Maier; Joann lived a life of independence, creativity and intellectual inquiry. After graduating from Peabody High School, she became the first person in her family of craftsmen and farmers to attend a four-year college, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Carnegie Institute of Technology (1958) and a Master of Fine Arts (1960, Painting Major, Metalwork Minor) from Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. She then worked as an instructor in the Department of Art at Wisconsin State College-Superior and studied intaglio printing at S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17 in Paris, France (1962-1963).

For more than three decades, Joann Maier was a faculty member in the Department of Art at Carnegie Mellon. She earned tenure in 1969, at a time when women were woefully underrepresented among university faculty. Even in 1984, an article noted that "to this day, the University of Pittsburgh's studio art department still has no tenured women professors. [...] Though three-quarters of the art students at CMU are women, one-quarter of the faculty are women. Only Joann Maier has tenure" (Ann Daly, The Pittsburgh Press, May 15, 1984, B8). Joann was promoted to Professor in 1989. During her long career, she trained several generations of artists, some of whom have followed her into teaching as well as artistic practice.

A prize-winning Abstract Expressionist painter, printmaker and sculptor in metal, Joann exhibited her work regularly, including in at least four one-woman shows. In a review of Joann's 1989 solo show at the CMU Hewlett Gallery, the late Pittsburgh artist and critic Harry Schwalb wrote that "I'd love to see the whole darn [exhibition] kept intact [...] and sent out on the road to show a new generation of students – and artists – what painting dedicated to high abstraction can be" (Pittsburgh, December 1989, 35). In the same review, Schwalb acknowledged Joann's deliberately low profile: "in an age of the artist-as-commodity, as his or her own most visible product [...], the very private Ms. Maier is living, breathing, painting proof that the work is everything" (34). That work is held in numerous collections: in Pittsburgh, at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Carnegie Mellon University; the Hunt Library and the Civil Engineering Department at CMU; Fisher Scientific Corporation; and the Johnson Corporation. Elsewhere, her work is represented in the State Museum of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg), Detroit Institute of Arts (Michigan), the Seattle Art Museum (Washington), the Westmoreland County Museum of Art (Greensburg, PA), the Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art (Macedonia), the Xantus Janos Museum (Gyor, Hungary), the Cultural Center Modern Gallery (Gornji Milanovac, Serbia), and corporate and private gallery collections.

Tall, elegant and intrepid, Joann was an athlete and a life-long horsewoman, studying dressage and continuing to ride into her eighties. She loved cats, birds and plants, keeping a spectacular plot of flowers and more than 40 houseplants thriving. She traveled widely, hiking in parks and preserves around the world and attending cultural events from the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet in St. Petersburg to chamber music concerts in Pittsburgh and Prague. She brooked no fools and lived life on her own terms – a thoroughly indomitable person who was an important role model for smart, independent women. Family lore has it that when she left the U.S. for Paris in 1962 to study at Atelier 17, she traveled by cargo ship, the only woman on board.

Joann was predeceased by her parents; stepfather, Max Schmid; stepmother, Dorothy (Detar) Maier, all of Pittsburgh; sister, Gertrude Maier Welsh and brother-in-law, Russell F. Welsh, Jr., both of Baltimore. She is survived by her niece, Kristen Welsh (Jeff Anderson) of Geneva, New York; nephew, Russell F. Welsh, III of Harrington, Delaware, and his children. An intensely private person, Joann nonetheless nurtured long-lasting friendships, including with former students who became dear friends, Betty Winkler (New York City) and Jamie Gruzska (Pittsburgh).

Following Joann's wishes, there will be no funeral service. Memorial contributions may be made to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank https://pittsburghfoodbank.org/, The Atelier 17 Project https://www.a17project.org/, or an education- or nature-related charity of your choice. Professional services trusted to D'ALESSANDRO FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY LTD.

www.dalessandroltd.com