Marian Amies is an associate tenured professor and joint head of the graphic design area of the BFA program at UM–St. Louis. She is an international exhibiting artist and a dual national of the UK and the US. Her graphic design, illustration, book arts and print work has been shown in over 100 exhibitions since 1986. She received a BFA in Graphic Design from Webster University and an MFA in Printmaking from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in 1997.

In addition to illustrating for Viking Penguin New York, her design commissions in her graphic design practice (founded in 1979) have included US tour materials for the Royal Airforce Red Arrows Aerobatics Team; projects for Mallinckrodt Medical Inc.; Holland American Lines; Sheraton Hotels; AT&T; American Standard; Ethyl Corporation; Girl Scouts and the National Children’s Cancer Society. She has received four fellowships in the Center for International Studies and has curated two international book shows at the university to include the work of over 300 artists and scholars from institutions including the British Library and Tate Britain. These shows are part of an ongoing The Art of the Book international exhibition series and include 84 page color catalogues to include essays and images by the participating artists and scholars. With proceeds from the catalogues and other fundraising activities Amies created The Art of the Book Scholarship to help fund students to study book arts overseas.

In 2004 she helped fund 6 junior and senior graphic design student majors to travel to Senegal, West Africa to study in a workshop producing artists’ books in collaboration with artists from many countries. She has lectured on her graphic design work and library book arts collections at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Her personal book arts work includes installation, projected animation, digital and traditional processes including hand bookbinding. An ongoing work series entitled UK/US compares and contrasts life experiences in both countries on issues of race, gender, equity and the environment.

In 2002 and 2003 she served on the board of the St. Louis Chapter of the AIGA American Institute of Graphic Arts as Education Chair and in 1986 and 1987 as a board member of the St. Louis Not Just An Art Directors’ Club. She lives in the city of St. Louis in the neighborhood of Benton Park in an 1890’s bakery building which houses the English Cave book arts press and her graphic design and printmaking studio.

Marian Amies
Associate Professor
209 Fine Arts Building
314/516-5997
amies@umsl.edu