Rediscovering Mac Schweitzer

Event Details

Join Ann Lane Hedlund, author and retired University of Arizona professor, for an in-depth presentation on the life and art of Mac Schweitzer (Mary Alice Cox Schweitzer) — a pioneering artist who captured the beauty, grit, and humanity of the American Southwest.

Born near Cleveland, Ohio, Schweitzer developed a fascination with horses, Western imagery, and art from an early age. After studying at the Cleveland School of Art and marrying fellow artist John Schweitzer, she adopted her initials “M.A.C.” as her professional name. In 1946, the couple and their young son moved to Tucson, where Schweitzer embarked on an extraordinary creative journey through the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and Native lands of the Southwest.

Her work spans naturalistic renderings of desert flora and fauna, expressive depictions of Indigenous family life, lyrical abstractions, and striking modernist compositions — each infused with a deep sense of place and spirit.

Ann Lane Hedlund is a cultural anthropologist, author, and curator whose career has been devoted to the study of weaving and textile traditions. From 1997 to 2013, she served as Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Ethnology at the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, where she directed the Gloria F. Ross Tapestry Program. Since the mid-1970s, Hedlund has conducted extensive fieldwork among Native American weavers and artists across the Southwest and has pursued a broader interest in global textile traditions.

The author of numerous publications and the curator of exhibitions nationwide, she edited Blanket Weaving in the Southwest (University of Arizona Press, 2003), the award-winning volume by Joe Ben Wheat. Her own book, Navajo Weaving in the Late Twentieth Century: Kin, Community, and Collectors (University of Arizona Press, 2004), received the Arizona Highways/Arizona Library Association Award for Non-Fiction. Her most recent work, Gloria F. Ross & Modern Tapestry (Yale University Press, 2010), explores the life and legacy of tapestry entrepreneur Gloria Ross, illuminating cross-cultural artistic collaboration in the twentieth century.

Copies of Ann Lane Hedlund’s new book, Mac Schweitzer: A Southwest Maverick and Her Art, will be available for purchase and signing following the talk.