Jane Freilicher, Parts of a World, 1987, oil on linen, 68 1/2 x 53 inches, 174 x 134.6 cm. Courtesy of the Estate of Jane Freilicher.
Jane Freililcher: Parts of a World
Kasmin is delighted to announce a new exhibition of work by American painter Jane Freilicher (1924–2014) on view at 297 Tenth Avenue until February 27, 2021, comprising some 15 still lifes spanning the artist’s career from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Together, these works illuminate Freilicher’s interior world, tracing her steadfast attention to the intimate domestic subjects that characterize her scenes—flowers, drapery, and New York backdrops.
Freilicher’s light-swept canvases are instantly recognizable for their framing of everyday objects. She often situates the viewer at the threshold of the inside and outside, her scenes derived from reality but painted into a fiction. Unconcerned by traditional associations between femininity and florals, Freilicher painted instead in the same spirit and dedication as Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse—a subtle and unrelenting observation of domestic life. “Her pictures always have an air of just coming into being, of tentativeness that is the lifeblood of art.” John Ashbery, a close friend of Freilicher’s, articulated this phenomenon.
A Brooklyn native, Jane Freilicher came of age in the era of Abstract Expressionism at the center of a group of influential artists and poets, including painters Willem de Kooning, Rudy Burckhardt, Joan Mitchell, Larry Rivers, Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz and poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O’Hara.
Founded by Paul Kasmin (1960–2020) in SoHo in 1989, Kasmin now encompasses two gallery spaces anchored in the heart of the Chelsea Arts District at 10th Avenue and 27th Street, New York City.
