Mary Powers Holt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has lived and worked in the Greater Philadelphia area all her life. She studied painting, drawing and Sculpture at the PA Academy of the Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Pennsylvania through the Academy and Penn’s coordinated B.F.A./Certificate program. As a student at the PA Academy she was awarded the J. Henry Schiedt Traveling Scholarship for work exhibited in the Student Annual.

Mary Powers Holt is a member of the Cerulean Arts Collective Members Gallery and has exhibited her work in four solo shows in the gallery with her most recent show in March 2022. She has exhibited at The PA Academy of the Fine Arts Alumni Gallery in the exhibit “12 x 12”, The 2017 PAFA Fellowship Show in the Alumni Gallery and at Hot Bed Gallery in 2020. She exhibited in “Landscapes”, “Winter Show” “International Painting I and IV", "Photographic Being" and “Small Works” at the Jeffrey Leder Gallery formerly in Long Island City, NY.  She exhibited solo in the Fall of 2014 to Spring 2015 at the Rivers Edge Gallery at Bridgeton House in Upper Black Eddy, PA. This exhibit was sponsored by InLiquid. Another past solo show was at the Burrison Gallery at the Penn Club of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA.

Additional exhibitions include the Maryland Federation of Art “American Landscapes” in 2016, 2012, 2013 and “Strokes of Genius” in 2011. “Crossing Lines” at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey’s 21st International show. Her work has been exhibited widely on the east coast and is part of many private collections.