Seen and Unseen

The exhibition at Parrish Art Museum explores the parallels and divergences in the work of Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson, who reinvented traditional landscape and still-life painting

The Parrish Art Museum has organized an exhibition featuring two notable figures in American art who abandoned the Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s New York art scene to fundamentally reinvent traditional landscape and still-life painting based on highly individual approaches to representation.

“Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson: Seen and Unseen” examines the work of the two artists from the beginnings of their careers in New York, considering their proximity in the Long Island hamlet of Water Mill, where they lived and worked within a mile of one another for 50 years.

Jane Wilson, <i>Bay House</i>, 1964. Oil on canvas, 40 x 60. Private Collection, Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York. Photograph by Steven Bates — **Top**: Jane Freilicher’s studio in Hoboken, New Jersey. Painting, by Jane Freilicher, is titled Opening Night. Photographs by Douglas Rodewald, 1957. **Above**: Jane Wilson, *Bay House*, 1964. Oil on canvas, 40 x 60. Private Collection, Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York. Photograph by Steven Bates

Organized thematically, the exhibition also shows how the storied light and natural beauty of Long Island’s East End became a primary focus of, and major influence on the work of Freilicher and Wilson, close friends whose professional and personal lives converged and diverged over the course of their lives.

The exhibition at the Parrish, spanning the full range of the artists’ explorations of landscape, still life, and portraits from the 1950s through 2007, reveals how each pushed the boundaries of traditional approaches to create highly individual accounts of the world around them. “Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson: Seen and Unseen” features approximately 20 paintings by each artist as well as works on paper, plus portraits of the two women painted by Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz, and photographs by Wilson’s husband John Jonas Gruen, chronicling the women’s lives.

Jane Freilicher, Flowering Pear, 1991. Oil on linen, 53 x 68. Collection of Jen and James Marden

Jane Freilicher, Flowers and Pine Trees, 1983. Oil on linen, 33 x 41. Collection of Jim Tarica

Jane Wilson, Near Night, Water Mill, 1988. Oil on canvas, 60 x 80. Estate of the Artist

Water Mill Beach, 1959. Front Row: Robert Rauschenberg, Steven Rivers (standing), Larry Rivers, Herbert Machiz, Grace Hartigan (lying down), John Myers. Back row: Maxine Groffsky, Joe Hazan, Mary Abbott, Jasper Johns, Sondra Lee, Jane Freilicher, Roland Pease, and Tibor de Nagy. Photographs by John Jonas Gruen

Jane Wilson and Jane Freilicher, ca. 1958. Photographs by John Jonas Gruen

Party at Jane Wilson’s apartment on West 18th Street in Manhattan, following the opening of her show at Hansa Gallery. Photographs by Douglas Rodewald, 1957.

October 25, 2015 – January 18, 2016
Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson
Seen and Unseen
Parrish Art Museum
279 Montauk Hwy, Water Mill, NY

Seen and Unseen

The exhibition at Parrish Art Museum explores the parallels and divergences in the work of Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson, who reinvented traditional landscape and still-life painting

Latest on News

Latest on Domus