Marie Watt

Watt was born in 1967 in Seattle and lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She received her MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University and holds degrees from Willamette University and the Institute of American Indian Arts. In 2016, she received an honorary doctorate from Willamette University. She has held residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Vermont Studio Center, and her work has been supported by fellowships from Anonymous Was a Woman, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Harpo Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, and the Native Arts and Culture Foundation, among others.

From 2017 to 2023, Watt served two terms on the board of Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA). She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Portland Art Museum. She is a super fan of Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts, a Native-founded printmaking center on the homelands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla.

She is the subject of two current solo institutional exhibitions. Tuning to the Sounds of the Skies is on view through December 14 at The Gund at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt, from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation is on view through December 6 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University in Oregon after stops at the University of San Diego; Art Museum of West Virginia University, Morgantown; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign; and the Print Center of New York. 

Three major announcements took place in September 2025: Watt was one of fifteen artists commissioned to create a major site specific installation for the Obama Presidential Center, opening in Chicago in spring 2026; she would be the recipient of the 2025 Heinz Award for the Arts; and Watt had been elected to the National Academy of Design. In December 2025, The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, Florida will open an exhibition curated by Watt of Beth Rudin DeWoody’s collection. 

Watt’s work is included in the collections of the Baltimore Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, Arkansas; Denver Art Museum; Metropolitan Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Seattle Art Museum; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum, New York among others.