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Audrey Flack

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Audrey Flack
Flack with her self-portrait
Born(1931-05-30)May 30, 1931
New York City, U.S.
DiedJune 28, 2024(2024-06-28)(aged 93)
Southampton, New York,U.S.
EducationNew York University Institute of Fine Arts
Yale University
Cooper Union
Known forPainting, sculpture
MovementPhotorealism
Spouse(s)Frank Levy, Robert Marcus (m. 1970)
Children2
Websitewww.audreyflack.com
Signature
Artist's signature on bronze

Audrey Lenora Flack(May 30, 1931 – June 28, 2024) was an American visual artist. Her work pioneered the art genre ofphotorealismand encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography.

Flack had numerous academic degrees, including both a graduate and anhonorary doctoral degreefromCooper Unionin New York City. Additionally she had a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts fromYale Universityand attendedNew York University Institute of Fine Artswhere she studiedart history.In May 2015, Flack received an honoraryDoctor of Fine Artsdegree fromClark University,where she gave a commencement address.

Flack's work is displayed in several major museums, including theMuseum of Modern Art,theMetropolitan Museum of Art,Smithsonian American Art Museum,theWhitney Museum of American Art,and theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum.Flack's photorealistic paintings were the first such paintings to be purchased for the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection, and her legacy as a photorealist lives on to influence many American and International artists today.J. B. Speed Art MuseuminLouisville, Kentucky,organized a retrospective of her work, and Flack's pioneering efforts into the world of photorealism popularized the genre to the extent that it remains today.[1]Flack was an Honorary Vice President of theNational Association of Women Artists.

An accomplishedbanjoplayer, Flack was lead vocalist forAudrey Flack and the History of Art Bandwho released a 2012 album.[2]Hitherto, the textbookJanson'sHistory of Artdid not mention a female artist; Flack was one of three living women added after Janson's death in theHistory of Art's3rd edition in 1986.[2][3]

Early life and education

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Flack was born in Manhattan, to Jeanette Flichtenfeld Flack and Morris Flack, owner of a garment factory. Both parents had immigrated to the US from Poland.[4]Flack attended New York'sHigh School of Music & Art.[5]She attended Cooper Union, then transferred to Yale College in 1952 to study fine arts withJosef Albersamong others.[6]She earned a graduate degree and received an honorary doctorate fromCooper Unionin New York City and aBachelor of Fine ArtsfromYale University.She studied art history at theInstitute of Fine Arts,New York University.[7]

Career

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Audrey Flack,Banana Split Sundae,1981.Minneapolis Institute of Art

Flack's early work in the 1950s wasabstract expressionist;one such painting paid tribute toFranz Kline.[8]The ironickitschthemes in her early work influencedJeff Koons.[9]But gradually, Flack became aNew Realistand then evolved into photorealism during the 1960s. Her move to the photorealist style was in part because she wanted her art to communicate to the viewer.[10]She was the first photorealist painter to be added to the collection of theMuseum of Modern Artin 1966.[11]Between 1976 and 1978 she painted her Vanitas series, including the iconic pieceMarilyn.[12]

The critic Graham Thompson wrote, "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It is also called super-realism, radical realism, orhyper-realismand painters likeRichard Estes,Denis Peterson,Flack, andChuck Closeoften worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs. "[13]

Art criticRobert C. Morganwrites inThe Brooklyn Railabout Flack's 2010 exhibition atGary SnyderProject Space,Audrey Flack Paints a Picture,"She has taken the signs of indulgence, beauty, and excess and transformed them into deeply moving symbols of desire, futility, and emancipation."[14]In the early 1980s Flack's artistic medium shifted from painting to sculpture.[10]She described this shift as a desire for "something solid, real, tangible. Something to hold and to hold on to."[15]

Flack claimed to have found the photorealist movement too restricting, and later gained much of her inspiration fromBaroqueart.[9]

Her work is held in the collections of museums around the world, including theMetropolitan Museum of Art,[16]The Museum of Modern Art,[17]theWhitney Museum of American Art,[18]theAllen Memorial Art Museum,[19]Smithsonian American Art Museum,[20]and theNational Gallery of AustraliainCanberra,Australia.[21]

In 1986 Flack publishedArt & Soul: Notes on Creating,a book expressing some of her thoughts on being an artist.[15]

Her image is included in the iconic 1972 posterSome Living American Women ArtistsbyMary Beth Edelson.[22]

In 2023 her work was included in the exhibitionAction, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970at theWhitechapel Galleryin London.[23]

Photorealism

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Flack is best known for her photorealist paintings and was one of the first artists to use photographs as the basis for painting.[10]The genre, taking its cues fromPop Art,incorporates depictions of the real and the regular, from advertisements to cars to cosmetics. Flack's work brings in everyday household items like tubes of lipstick, perfume bottles, Hispanic Madonnas, and fruit.[10]These inanimate objects often disturb or crowd the pictorial space, which are often composed as table-top still lives. Flack often brought in actual accounts of history into her photorealist paintings, such asWorld War II' (Vanitas)andKennedy Motorcade.Women were frequently the subject of her photorealist paintings.[10]

The first photorealist painting theMoMAin New York City purchased was Flack's 1974 canvasLeonardo's Lady,soon after it was painted.[24]

Sculpture

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Sculpture by Audrey Flack inNew Orleans
Statue ofCatherine of Braganza,in Lisbon, a scale model for a much larger one planned forborough of Queens.New York City, never built

Flack's sculpture is often overlooked in light of her better-known photorealist paintings. InThe New Civic Art: An Interview with Audrey Flack,[25]Flack discussed the fact that she was self-taught in sculpture. She incorporated religion and mythology into her sculpture rather than the historical or everyday subjects of her paintings. Her sculptures often demonstrate a connection to the female form, including a series of diverse, heroic women and goddess figures. These depictions of women differ from those of traditional femininity, but rather are athletic, older, and strong. As Flack described them: "they are real yet idealized... the 'goddesses in everywoman.'"[10]

In the early 1990s, Flack was commissioned by a group called Friends of Queen Catherine to create a monumental bronze statue ofCatherine of Braganza,in whose honor theborough of Queensis named. The statue, which would have been roughly the height of a nine-story building, was meant to be installed on theEast Rivershore in theHunters Pointarea ofLong Island City,across from theUnited Nations Headquarters.[26]The project was never fully realized, however, as protestors in the mid-late 1990s objected to Queen Catherine's ties to theTransatlantic Slave Trade.(Others objected to the statue of a monarch overlooking anAmerican Revolutionary Warbattleground.)[27]Flack nevertheless remained dedicated to the project, and notes that she endeavored to depict Catherine as biracial, reflecting her Portuguese background and paying homage to the ethnic diversity of the borough of Queens.[28]

Death

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Flack died inSouthampton, New Yorkon June 28, 2024, at the age of 93. She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Marcus, and is survived by two daughters, Hannah and Melissa.[29]

Publications

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  • Flack, Audrey,With Darkness Comes Stars: Audrey Flack, a Memoir(University Park: PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2024).
  • Flack, Audrey, Thalia Gouma-Peterson, and Patricia Hills.Breaking the Rules: Audrey Flack, a Retrospective 1950–1990.New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992.OCLC24431345.
  • Flack, Audrey,Audrey Flack: The Daily Muse(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989).
  • Flack, Audrey,Art & Soul: Notes on Creating,New York, Dutton, 1986,ISBN0-525-24443-3
  • Flack, Audrey,Audrey Flack: On Painting,with an essay by Ann Sutherland Harris (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981).
  • Flack, Audrey, "On Carlo Crivelli",Art Magazine55 (1981): 92–95.
  • Flack, Audrey, "The Haunting Images of Louisa Roldan",Helicon Nine: A Journal of Women's Arts and Letters(1979).
  • Flack, Audrey, "Louisa Ignacia Roldan",Women's Studies6 (1978): 23–33.

References

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  1. ^Meisel, Louis."Biography of Audrey Flack".Archived fromthe originalon March 18, 2008.RetrievedFebruary 27,2015.
  2. ^abBaskind, Samantha (July 3, 2024)."The Remarkable Legacy of Artist and Feminist Audrey Flack, Dead at 93".Smithsonian.RetrievedJuly 5,2024.
  3. ^Janson, H.W.;Janson, Anthony F. (1986).History of Art.H.N. Abrams;Prentice-Hall.p. 8.ISBN978-0-13-389388-5.RetrievedJuly 5,2024– viaInternet Archive.And the achievement of women artists here receives recognition, long overdue.
  4. ^Heinrich, Will (July 5, 2024)."Audrey Flack, Creator of Vibrant Photorealist Art, Dies at 93".The New York Times.Vol. 173, no. 60206. p. B10.ISSN0362-4331.RetrievedJuly 5,2024.
  5. ^"Oral history interview with Audrey Flack,"ArchivedNovember 4, 2016, at theWayback MachineSmithsonian Institution Archives of American Art website (February 16, 2009).
  6. ^"Audrey Flack papers, circa 1952–2008".Archives of American Art.Smithsonian Institution.Archivedfrom the original on June 13, 2018.RetrievedApril 9,2013.
  7. ^"Biography".Audrey Flack.audreyflack.com. Archived fromthe originalon August 1, 2012.RetrievedApril 9,2013.
  8. ^Malone, Peter (May 28, 2015)."Learning from an Artist's Early Experiments with AbEx".Hyperallergic.Archivedfrom the original on July 2, 2024.RetrievedJuly 3,2024.
  9. ^abarts, Women in the (May 19, 2010)."From NMWA's Vault: Audrey Flack".Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog.Archived fromthe originalon March 6, 2019.RetrievedMarch 2,2019.
  10. ^abcdefGaze, Delia (1997).Dictionary of Women Artists.Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. pp.526.ISBN1-884964-21-4.
  11. ^"Audrey Flack Biography".Jewish Virtual Library.American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.Archivedfrom the original on July 16, 2014.RetrievedApril 9,2013.
  12. ^"Audrey Flack's Marilyn: Still Life, Vanitas, Trompe l'Oeil".The University of Arizona Museum of Art and Archive of Visual Arts.Archived fromthe originalon January 11, 2018.RetrievedJanuary 11,2018.
  13. ^Thompson, Graham:American Culture in the 1980s(Twentieth Century American Culture), Edinburgh University Press, 2007
  14. ^Morgan, Robert C. (November 2010)."Audrey Flack and the Revolution of Still Life Painting".The Brooklyn Rail.Archivedfrom the original on October 10, 2012.RetrievedApril 27,2012.
  15. ^abFlack, Audrey. (October 1, 1986).Art & Soul: Notes on Creating.Dutton.ISBN978-0-525-24443-1.RetrievedApril 9,2013.
  16. ^"Audrey Flack | Queen".The Metropolitan Museum of Art.RetrievedApril 19,2023.
  17. ^"Audrey Flack".Museum of Modern Art.Archivedfrom the original on March 23, 2023.RetrievedApril 19,2023.
  18. ^"Audrey Flack".Whitney Museum of American Art.Archivedfrom the original on April 19, 2023.RetrievedApril 19,2023.
  19. ^"Strawberry Tart Supreme".Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College.Archivedfrom the original on April 19, 2023.RetrievedApril 19,2023.
  20. ^"Audrey Flack | Smithsonian American Art Museum".americanart.si.edu.RetrievedApril 27,2023.
  21. ^"Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper".Smithsonian American Art Museum.Archivedfrom the original on January 20, 2022.RetrievedJanuary 21,2022.
  22. ^https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/remarkable-legacy-artist-feminist-audrey-flack-died-180978318/#:~:text=The%20first%20photorealist%20work%20MoMA,year%20after%20it%20was%20painted.
  23. ^Brigham, David R.; Flack, Audrey (1994)."The New Civic Art: An Interview with Audrey Flack".American Art.8(1): 2–21.doi:10.1086/424205.JSTOR3109159.S2CID194094910.Archivedfrom the original on March 8, 2021.RetrievedApril 19,2023.
  24. ^Fried, Joseph P. (July 26, 1992)."Catherine of Queens?".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archivedfrom the original on March 6, 2019.RetrievedMarch 2,2019.
  25. ^Bearak, Barry (January 9, 1998)."The Queen of Ethnic Nightmares; Cultural Politics Mires Statue of Borough's Namesake".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archivedfrom the original on March 6, 2019.RetrievedMarch 2,2019.
  26. ^Kilgannon, Corey (November 9, 2017)."The Statue That Never Was".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archivedfrom the original on March 6, 2019.RetrievedMarch 2,2019.
  27. ^"Audrey Flack: In Memoriam (1931–2024)".Louis K. Meisel Gallery.Archivedfrom the original on July 1, 2024.RetrievedJuly 1,2024.

Further reading

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