Marilyn Murphy

(b.1950) lives in Nashville
Night Winds Over Tulsa, 1998 (detail)
oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches, 2000.40

Professor of Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Murphy received her B.F.A. from Oklahoma State University, and her M.F.A from the University of Oklahoma. Murphy specializes in creating situations from everyday life often that have an unusual twist. Her work has been shown in more than 300 exhibitions nationally and abroad in such places as the National Academy of Design, The Drawing Center in New York, and the Perc Tucker Gallery in Australia. A recipient of numerous awards, including the Individual Artist Fellowship in 1989 from the Tennessee Arts Commission, she has curated more than 30 exhibitions and her work is in many public and private collections including the Kemper Collection, Huntsville Museum of Art, the Boston Museum School, Tennessee State Museum and the Prudential and Bridgestone Collections.

The imagery in this painting includes an Art Deco designed service station that was built in Tulsa in 1925. It was Tulsa’s first service station to have compressed air pumps, and restrooms with hot and cold running water. The dome loft housed living quarters for the attendant on 318-324 East Second Street.