Jane Freilicher

Art Brokerage: Jane Freilicher American Artist: b. 1924-2014. Jane Freilicher (November 29, 1924 December 9, 2014) was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginning in the 1950s, and a muse to several of its poets and writers. Freilicher was at the center of a milieu of important New York painters and poets, including painters Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Fairfield Porter, Larry Rivers, and poets of the New York School including John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara and James Schuyler. Along with Frankenthaler and Mitchell, and Nell Blaine, she was among only a handful of women artists who were exhibiting alongside their male counterparts. In 1996 she was awarded the Annual Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York. In the 1950s she became part of an informal circle of writers and artists called the New York School. She was featured in Mounting Tension, a 1950 film by Rudy Burckhardt in which John Ashbery and Larry Rivers fight for her affections. James Schuyler wrote Presenting Jane, in one scene she walked on water. In A Terrestrial Cuckoo O'Hara describes his dream of paddling down a jungle river with her, one of many poems he wrote about her. Freilicher was a catalytic and consequential presence. She not only forged close friendships with this group of poets, she also served as a muse. They also regularly sought her advice for poems in progress. O'Hara wrote among his most celebrated series of poems about the artists which weaves her name into the titles. Ashbery and O’Hara both dedicated several books to her. Her friends and fellow artists included Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan and Fairfield Porter. Hartigan, Nell Blaine and Helen Frankenthaler also exhibited at Tibor de Nagy Gallery. Freilicher's papers, including poetry and photographs, of her relationship with New York School writers and artists are now owned by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.