My Artist Inspirations: Jane Freilicher
I found out about Jane Freilicher (1924–2014) for the first time this year and it was such a refreshing experience to see her example as an artist. I was really struggling with what my goals were as an artist and seeing so many artists saying that the only way is to be in tune with the vast trends. I was searching for artists that could show me another way. But even artists classically promoted for this end such as Fairfield Porter seemed in my mind not to be actually taking a different route philosophically than their peers. This is the landscape where Jane stood out as different. She even said “To strain after innovation, to worry about being ‘on the cutting edge’—a phrase I hate—reflects concern for a place in history or for one’s career rather than for the authenticity of one’s own painting.”
She said that became interested in art when she was very young “not for fame or achievement, but out of a romantic inclination to beautiful things.” I am drawn to art because of beautiful things. I have doubted if that is a strong enough reason, but nonetheless it is my reason. So it is an encouragement to me to “meet” other artists who feel so similarly.
I also am drawn to her work because of our similar love of color. The Telegraph wrote “She embraced a particularly bright, elemental palette of turquoises, lime greens, corncob yellow and summery blues.”
I most admire her flower bouquet paintings.
She painted many of them but I feel that she could have painted even more of the exact same window scenes and them have been varied and unique enough to interest me endlessly.
To me her flower bouquet still lifes are such a vivid mix of painting exactly what you see and painting to create lyrical poetry. She is painting her everyday life and view from her window, but she is choosing to arrange flowers into her everyday life and create these harmonies of the personally stylized foreground with the pre-structured view.
I see a lot of parallels between Jane Freilicher and C. Brooke Ring. They both painted joyful, vibrant flowers in times when abstract art are more popular. And I think they both excellently portray a balance of variety and harmony in their bouquets.
Many people did not see Jane Freilicher as a prominent artist at first, but by the time she was in her thirties she had her first solo show at an established gallery and from there gradually increased in recognition.
Beyond her own success, she showed the world more details in the connection between music, poetry, and art. She was close friends with several poets and musicians and this is imbued in her work. She also continues to inspire artist drawn to art through beauty who may not initially be recognized by the art world as they are painting in there home studios and gradually sharing their vision with the world. Her daughter Elizabeth Hazan also became an artist after personally seeing the worthy pursuit modeled by her mother Jane.
Articles referenced:
https://www.artnet.com/artists/jane-freilicher
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11310690/Jane-Freilicher-obituary.html
https://www.lynn-byrne.com/posts/todays-beautiful-the-lyrical-art-of-jane-freilicher
https://wooarts.com/jane-freilicher/nggallery/image/jane-freilicher-american-painting-wooarts-10?amp
