Rosalyn Drexler facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler at her publisher's office (circa 1960)
Born	Rosalyn Bronznick (1926-11-25) November 25, 1926 (age 98) Bronx, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Marilyn Pursued by Death, 1963
Movement	Pop art
Spouse(s)	Sherman Drexler (1925-2014; his death)

Rosalyn Drexler, born on November 25, 1926, is an amazing American artist. She is also a writer, a playwright who won awards, a screenwriter who won an Emmy, and even a former professional wrestler! Rosalyn has done many different things in her life. She is most famous for her Pop art paintings. She also wrote the book version of the movie Rocky under the pen name Julia Sorel. Today, Drexler lives and works in New York City, New York.

Rosalyn Drexler's Early Life and Education

Rosalyn Drexler, whose birth name was Bronznick, was born in 1926. She grew up in the Bronx and East Harlem, New York. As a child, Rosalyn saw many live shows like vaudeville acts with her family. Her parents also helped her discover art early on. They bought her art posters, books, and crayons. She says these things influenced her a lot.

Rosalyn went to the High School of Music and Art in New York City. There, she studied singing. She went to Hunter College for only one semester. Then, at 19, she left school to marry painter Sherman Drexler in 1946. Rosalyn is in many of her husband's paintings. They had a daughter and a son together.

Rosalyn Drexler's Wrestling Career

In 1951, Rosalyn and her husband lived in Hell's Kitchen, New York. This was close to Botner's Gymnasium, where many female professional wrestlers trained. A friend suggested Rosalyn try wrestling, and she started working out there. She quickly learned how to wrestle without hurting anyone. She also learned how to make a lot of noise to make her performance exciting.

Drexler soon traveled for wrestling matches. This allowed her to visit the South and Florida. She wrestled under the name "Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire." While on tour, she wrestled in unusual places. These included a graveyard and an airplane hangar! There is even a photo of her getting ready to fight Mae Young, a very famous wrestler. She toured across the country. However, she returned home because she was upset about racism in the southern states. Things like separate seating and water fountains for different races bothered her. Later, Andy Warhol made a series of silkscreen paintings based on a photo of Drexler as Rosa Carlo.

Rosalyn's time as Rosa Carlo inspired her 1972 novel, To Smithereens. She wrote the book because she disliked the experience. But she felt it should not be wasted. She thought she should "at least get a book out of it." This novel was later made into the 1980 film Below the Belt. When she was 54, she tried to be an athlete again. She entered a powerlifting contest, but she did not win.

She has also made several paintings about women's wrestling. These include Take Down (1963), Lost Match (1962), and The Winner (1965).

Rosalyn Drexler's Writing Career

Rosalyn Drexler has written many books and plays. She has also written for movies and TV.

Novels by Rosalyn Drexler

• I Am the Beautiful Stranger (1965)
• One or Another (1970)
• To Smithereens (1972)
• The Cosmopolitan Girl (1974)
• Unwed Widow (1975)—written as Julia Sorel
• Starburn: The Story of Jenni Love (1979)
• Bad Guy (1982)
• Art Does (Not!) Exist (1996)
• Vulgar Lives (2007)

Screenplays Adapted by Rosalyn Drexler

Rosalyn wrote these screenplays under her pen name, Julia Sorel:

• Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976)
• Rocky (1976)—Based on the movie script by Sylvester Stallone
• Alexander, The Other Side of Dawn (1977)
• See How She Runs (1978)

Plays by Rosalyn Drexler

• Home Movies (1964)
• The Line of Least Existence and Other Plays (1967)
• "Skywriting" in Collision Course (1968)
• "Hot Buttered Roll" in Theatre Experiment: An Anthology of American Plays (1968)
• Methuen Playscripts (1969)
• "Home Movies" in The Off-Off Broadway Book: The Plays, People, Theatre (1972)
• Fiction (1972)
• "Skywriting" in A Century of Plays by American Women (1979)
• Transients Welcome: Three One-Act Plays (1984)
• "Occupational Hazard" in Women on the Verge: 7 Avant-Garde American Plays (1993)

Television Work

Drexler was one of 15 writers for the 1973 CBS comedy special Lily. This show starred Lily Tomlin, Alan Alda, and Richard Pryor.

Rosalyn Drexler's Visual Arts Career

Drexler started making sculptures from found objects. She made them to display in her home. This was when she lived in Berkeley, California. Her husband was finishing his art degree there. These sculptures were made of plaster built around scrap metal and wood. They showed the art style of the time. In 1955, Drexler showed her first artworks alongside her husband's paintings.

She kept showing her art after moving to New York City. This was encouraged by artist David Smith and art dealer Ivan Karp. One art critic called her early sculptures "ridiculous and nutty." But they also said the sculptures showed "real beauty." Her works were shown in New York in 1960 at Reuben Gallery. There, she took part in "Happenings" (art events). Artists like David Smith and Franz Kline praised her work. When the Reuben Gallery closed, she did not get new offers. This was because "women [sculptors] were not bankable at [the] time." She quickly started painting to get more offers. She did odd jobs to earn money while making art. She worked as a waitress, a cigarette girl, a hatcheck, and a masseuse.

Love and Violence (1965) at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2022

By 1961, Drexler started changing her art to Pop art. She looked through old magazines, posters, and newspapers for images. Her process was self-taught. She would enlarge images from magazines and newspapers. Then she would collage them onto canvas. After that, she painted over them with bright, strong colors. She also loves using Elmer's Glue in her work. She says it "doesn't get enough credit for its role in art." Drexler has never had her own art studio. She usually worked anywhere she could, often at home.

Drexler signed with Kornblee Gallery. She had solo shows there from 1964 to 1966. In January 1964, her work was in the "First International Girlie Exhibit." This show was at Pace Gallery, New York. She and Marjorie Strider were the only two women Pop artists in this show. It also featured famous artists like Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann. Drexler showed collages made from "girlie magazines." Some people were shocked by her work. But her paintings were mostly well-received. One critic wrote that her paintings were "refreshingly direct." They showed "brutality, desire, pathos and playfulness."

Drexler's Pop paintings continued to get good reviews. They were shown in big Pop art exhibitions in the 1960s. However, she did not become as famous as many male artists. The main ideas in her paintings were sometimes controversial. These included difficult relationships, racism, and feeling alone. Pop art was known for being "cool" and detached.

Drexler's Pop paintings are now seen as early feminist artworks. However, Drexler herself did not like this idea. She said her work did not have a political message on purpose. Even so, in 1968, Drexler signed a pledge. It was called the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest." She promised to refuse tax payments to protest the Vietnam War.

In 2018, her work got new attention. A big exhibition showed her art from her whole career. In 2022, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden named an exhibit after Drexler's 1963 painting "Put it this way." The exhibit was called "Put It This Way: (Re)visions of The Hirshhorn Collection."

Major Themes and Works

Drexler's art often explores women's roles. She gets ideas from old movies, like women who cause trouble or need to learn a lesson. Her images come from public media that everyone could understand.

Her The Love and Violence series shows difficult relationships between men and women. These paintings look like covers of old pulp fiction books. They also look like posters for B-movies or scenes from gangster films. In most paintings, the men are the ones causing problems. But in some, like Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and Dangerous Liaison (1963), the roles are less clear. Other works in this series include The Bite (1963), Love and Violence (1965), and Baby, It's Alright (1963).

Is It True What They Say About Dixie? (1966) was inspired by a newspaper photo. It showed Bull Connor, a police chief. He started the 1963 Birmingham race riot. The people in the painting walk towards the viewer. They wear black suits against a white background. The painting's title comes from a popular American song. It makes a comment on the racial problems of her time. The painting F.B.I. (1964) is similar. It makes government agents look cool. But it also questions their power.

Marilyn Pursued by Death (1967) shows Marilyn Monroe being followed by a man. It looks like "Death" is a stalker. But the original photo shows the man is actually her bodyguard.

Some paintings are based on movie posters. King Kong aka The Dream (1963) is like a lobby card for the 1961 film Konga. Chubby Checker (1964) is based on the poster for the 1961 musical Twist Around the Clock.

Connections with Other Artists

Drexler was close friends with Franz Kline and Bill and Elaine de Kooning. She also knew Eva Hesse, George Segal (whom she posed for), Lucas Samaras, Claes Oldenburg, and Alice Neel. She worked on plays with John Vaccaro. She called him "a terrifying creative projectile."

Select Awards and Honors

Rosalyn Drexler has won many awards for her writing and art:

• 1964: Obie Award for Distinguished Play, Home Movies
• 1965, 1968, 1974, 1986: Rockefeller Grants in Playwriting
• 1966: Paris Review Humor Prize, Dear
• 1970-71: Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction
• 1973: Emmy Award for Best Writing for Comedy-Variety (Special Program), Lily
• 1979: Obie Award for Best Playwriting, The Writer's Opera
• 1985: Obie Award for Best Playwriting, Transients Welcome
• 1990: New York Foundation for the Arts, Grant in Playwriting
• 1991: National Endowment for the Arts, Grant in Theater
• 1994, 2000: Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Grant in Painting
• 1997-98: Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe College/Harvard University, Visual Arts-Painting
• 2005: Helen & George Segal Foundation, Grant in Painting
• 2007: Honorary Degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia

Images for kids

• 

  Rosalyn Drexler at her publisher's office (circa 1960)

• 

  Love and Violence (1965)