Isabelle Collin Dufresne facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Isabelle Collin Dufresne
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Ultra Violet, 1970
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| Born | 6 September 1935 La Tronche, France
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| Died | 14 June 2014 (aged 78) New York City, US
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| Other names | Ultra Violet |
| Occupation | Actress, writer, artist |
Isabelle Collin Dufresne (6 September 1935 – 14 June 2014), known professionally as Ultra Violet, was a French-American artist, author, and both a colleague of Andy Warhol and one of his so-called Superstars. Earlier in her career, she worked for and studied with surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Dufresne lived and worked in New York City, and also had a studio in Nice, France.
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Early life
Isabelle Collin Dufresne was brought up in a strict religious upper-middle-class family, but she rebelled at an early age. She was instructed at a Catholic school, and then a reform school. In 1953, she received a BA in Art at Le Sacré Cœur in Grenoble, France. She soon left France to live with an older sister in New York City.
Salvador Dalí and New York City
In 1954, after a meeting with Salvador Dalí, she became his "muse", pupil and studio assistant in both Port Lligat, Spain, and in New York City. Later, she would recall, "I realized that I was 'surreal', which I never knew until I met Dalí." In the 1960s, Dufresne began to follow the progressive American Pop Art scene including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist.
Warhol and "The Factory"
In 1963, Dalí introduced Dufresne to Andy Warhol at the Saint Regis New York Hotel, and soon she moved into the orbit of his unorthodox studio, "The Factory". In 1964 she selected the stage name "Ultra Violet" at Warhol's suggestion, because it was her preferred fashion — her hair color at the time was often violet or lilac. She became one of many "superstars" in Warhol's Factory, and played multiple roles in over a dozen films between 1965 and 1974.
In 1969, Ultra Violet starred in John Chamberlain's The Secret Life of Hernando Cortez (1969), filmed in Mexico and co-starring Taylor Mead. She would eventually appear in more than 20 films, not counting numerous documentaries made at the Factory.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she gradually drifted away from the Factory scene, taking a lower profile and working independently on her own art. In her autobiography, published the year after Warhol's unexpected demise in 1987, she chronicled the activities of many Warhol superstars, including several untimely deaths during and after the Factory years.
Later career
In 1988, Ultra Violet published her autobiography, Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol. After a review of the book in The New York Times, it was published worldwide, eventually in 17 languages. After a book tour, she returned to France; in 1990 she opened a studio in Nice and wrote another book detailing her own ideas about art, L'Ultratique. She lived and worked as an artist in New York City, and also maintained a studio in Nice for the rest of her life.
In 2000, she was featured in Message to Andy Warhol, a "concept art documentary" by Laurent Foissac.
On 10 April 2005, she joined a panel discussion "Reminiscences of Dalí: A Conversation with Friends of the Artist" as part of a symposium "The Dalí Renaissance" for a major retrospective show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her conversation with another former Dalí protégée, French singer/actress Amanda Lear, is recorded in the 236-page exhibition catalog, The Dalí Renaissance: New Perspectives on His Life and Art after 1940.
In 2006, she had a solo show at Stefan Stux Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan.
In 2010, filmmaker David Gerson released Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes, a short documentary showing her perspectives on fame, art, religion, and her current artistic practice.
She gave her last TV interview for the German documentary about obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), Wie ich lernte, die Zahlen zu lieben (How I Learned to Love the Numbers), by Oliver Sechting and Max Taubert.
In 2014, she exhibited in four different solo and group shows, in New York and in Nice. Her last exhibition at the Dillon Gallery in Manhattan, Ultra Violet: The Studio Recreated, closed three weeks before her death. It included paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and neon art. Three of her sculptures are in the permanent collection of the 9/11 Museum.
Personal life
Dufresne died on 14 June 2014, in New York City at the age of 78, from cancer. She had never married. Dufresne was survived by two sisters. She is buried in Saint-Égrève near Grenoble.
See also
In Spanish: Isabelle Collin Dufresne para niños
