Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1955, María Schön grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where she had her first solo show at age fourteen. In 1977 she went to New York, to The Cooper Union, with an Exchange Fellowship. In 1978 she graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, with a Bachelor of Fine Art, and later, in 1984, obtained her Master of Fine Art at New York University’s Graduate School of Film and Television. She has received several awards and honors for her work in the arts, including being named Academy Fellow to the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, during her film studies at NYU. Although Schön’s artistic education and career developed entirely in the United States –as evident in her work with its strong feeling for light, raw technique, bold color, and brush work often found in paintings by Edward Hopper and Richard Diebenkorn—the visual images in her landscapes exhibit a deep connection in subject and atmospheric sensuality to her South American roots. In the series “Tropical Elements”, the artist uses four compositional elements—ocean, sky, mountain, tree—to create a set of landscapes that explore a potentially infinite number of compositional possibilities. A collection of archival prints have been created from this series, which includes a group wherein Schön reaffirms her versatility as a colorist by working in a limited palette of warm and cool grays.