Grace Hartigan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Grace Hartigan
|
|
|---|---|
Hartigan in LIFE magazine, May 13, 1957
|
|
| Born | March 28, 1922 Newark, New Jersey, US
|
| Died | November 15, 2008 (aged 86) Baltimore, Maryland, US
|
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionism |
| Spouse(s) | Winston H. Price |
Grace Hartigan (born March 28, 1922 – died November 15, 2008) was an American painter. She was a very important artist in the Abstract Expressionist movement. She was also a key member of the New York School in the 1950s and 1960s.
Grace Hartigan was friends with many famous artists. These included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning, and Frank O'Hara. Her paintings are now in many major museums, like the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She also taught many young artists as the director of the Maryland Institute College of Art's Hoffberger School of Painting.
Contents
Early life and art beginnings
Grace Hartigan was born in Newark, New Jersey. She was the oldest of four children. Her father and grandmother often told her stories and sang songs.
She finished high school in Millburn, New Jersey, in 1940. At age nineteen, she married Robert Jachens. They planned to move to Alaska but ended up in California. There, Hartigan started painting with her husband's help.
In 1942, her husband joined the army. Hartigan then moved back to New Jersey. She studied mechanical drafting, which is like drawing plans for machines. She also worked in an airplane factory to support herself and her son. During this time, she learned painting from Isaac Lane Muse. He showed her the work of Henri Matisse and a book called The Natural Way to Draw. These greatly influenced her art.
Hartigan once said about becoming a painter, “I didn’t choose painting. It chose me. I didn’t have any talent. I just had genius.”
Career highlights
Starting out in New York
In 1945, Hartigan moved to New York City. She became part of the art scene there. She was friends with artists like Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, and Willem de Kooning.
Hartigan became known as part of the New York School. This was a group of artists who became famous in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1950, her work was chosen for a special "New Talent" exhibition. The next year, she had her first solo art show.
Many people saw Hartigan as a "second generation Abstract Expressionist". This means she was influenced by the first group of Abstract Expressionists. At first, her art was completely abstract, like her painting Six by Six (1951). Later, she started adding more recognizable shapes and figures to her paintings. For a short time, she even showed her art under the name George Hartigan to get more attention. By 1953, she began using her real first name, Grace.
Fame in the 1950s and 1960s
From 1952 to 1953, Hartigan worked with her friend, the poet Frank O'Hara. They created a series of 12 paintings called "Oranges." These paintings were based on O’Hara’s poems and even included some of the poem's words. They were shown in 1953.
In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art bought her painting The Persian Jacket (1952). This made her the first "second generation" Abstract Expressionist to have a piece in this famous museum. In 1954, she had a very successful art show where all her paintings sold out. Other museums, like the Whitney Museum, also bought her work.
By 1954, Hartigan was selling a lot of art. Her work was also shown in a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
In 1956, her paintings were part of the "12 Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art. Her art also traveled across Europe from 1958 to 1959 in "The New American Painting" exhibition. She received a lot of media attention because few women artists got this much exposure. She was featured in Life magazine in 1957 and Newsweek in 1959. Life magazine even called her "the most celebrated of the young American women painters."
Around this time, Hartigan's art changed. She started making more transparent paintings and collages with watercolors. She said, "I have left the groan and the anguish behind. The cry has become a song." Examples include Phoenix and Lily Pond (both 1962).
In 1962, she painted Monroe, which showed another change in her art. Her later paintings, like The Hunted (1963), showed more anxious feelings. This was partly because of events like JFK's assassination. She also strongly disliked Pop art, a new art movement at the time. She felt the world was becoming a "frightening and foreign place."
In 1965, Hartigan became the director of the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She taught there until she died.
Some of her paintings in the 1960s were more cheerful, like Reisterstown Mall (1965). She continued to use ideas from popular culture but kept her unique painting style. Her painting When the Raven was White (1969) was a memorial to a friend and also about her own life. It showed hope in dark times.
Art in the 1970s
In the 1970s, Hartigan's art often showed her own life and feelings. She was influenced by Cubism, an art style she had studied early on. Her paintings from this time were often crowded with many recognizable objects. During this decade, Philip Guston became her closest artist friend. Both artists used symbols in their work to show their thoughts and feelings.
Harold Rosenberg, an art critic, was also an important part of Hartigan's life. He believed that artists should not stick to one style. He said that the "enemy of art is conformity."
Some of her paintings from this period include Beware of Gifts (1971), Another Birthday (1971), and I Remember Lascaux (1978). Her image was also included in a famous 1972 poster called Some Living American Women Artists.
Later years: 1980s and 1990s
In the 1980s, Hartigan returned to painting figures, like paper dolls, saints, and opera singers. In 1992, she had a solo exhibition in New York City. In 1993, her work was part of the "Hand-Painted Pop" exhibition at the Whitney Museum.
Artistic themes and inspirations
In the early 1950s, Hartigan began painting figures inspired by the "old masters" (famous artists from the past). Clement Greenberg, an important art critic, liked her Abstract Expressionist art. However, he did not like her figurative paintings. This disagreement led to her breaking ties with Greenberg. Painting from the old masters helped Hartigan learn about space, light, and form in her art. Examples include River Bathers (1953) and The Tribute Money (1952), which were inspired by Henri Matisse and Rubens.
Shop windows and their displays were a common theme in her art. Her "Brides" series started in 1949. She was inspired by the many bridal shops in her neighborhood. She painted groups of mannequins in wedding dresses. Grand Street Brides (1954), based on a painting by Goya, helped make her famous. Later, Hartigan said that the bridal theme felt "ludicrous" to her. She often painted things she was "against" to try to make them "wonderful." In 1965, she returned to this theme with Reisterstown Mall, showing a modern shopping mall. She included many recognizable objects, but her art was not Pop art. She was too deeply involved with her subjects to have the detached style of Pop art.
Hartigan's work often explored popular culture. For example, in 1962, she painted Marilyn Monroe. Her painting was expressive and different from the impersonal style of Pop artists like Andy Warhol. Hartigan used several photographs to create her fragmented, semi-abstract picture. She felt it showed Monroe more honestly than her public image. "Modern Cycle" (1967) captured America's fascination with machines in the 1960s.
Hartigan often worked with or was influenced by her friends from the New York School. This included poets, writers, and other artists. The "Oranges" series was a collaboration with her close friend Frank O'Hara. She created a painting for each of his fourteen poems, even adding text from the poems into her images.
Her own life experiences were a strong part of all Hartigan's work. This became even more central in the 1970s. Throughout her career, she painted many memorial pieces. These were abstract paintings remembering friends and family who had passed away, like Martha Jackson, Franz Kline, Frank O'Hara, her father, and Winston Price.
Personal life
Grace Hartigan married Robert Jachens in 1941, and they had a son in 1942. They divorced in 1947. She later married artist Harry Jackson in 1949, but this marriage was ended in 1950. Her third marriage was to gallery owner Robert Keene in 1958, which ended in 1960.
In 1959, Hartigan met Dr. Winston Price, a research scientist. They married in 1960. Price passed away in 1981.
Hartigan had a close friendship with Frank O'Hara. They had a disagreement and did not speak for six years. However, they later reconnected and remained friends until O’Hara's death in 1966. In the 1970s, Philip Guston was the artist Hartigan was closest to.
Grace Hartigan died in November 2008 at the age of 86.
Public collections
- Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Albany, NY
- Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
- Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
- Baltimore Museum of Art
See also
In Spanish: Grace Hartigan para niños
