Jane Frank
Abstract expressionist, trained in commercial arts, mixed media goddess, and mom.
Jane Frank, born in 1918, died in 1986, was a pupil of Hans Hofmann. Her work can be categorized stylistically as abstract expressionist, but on ewho draws primary inspiration from the natural world, particularly landscape, or landscape “as metaphor”, as she once explained. Her extensive schooling includes attendance at Park School, the Maryland Institute of Arts and Sciences (now MICA), New York's Parsons School of Design, and the New Theater School in New York. She then began seriously painting in 1940, but having a background entirely in commercial art, she had to work hard to seriously change her approach to painting. She studied the art and history of painting extensively, in order to learn all that she could about the heart and soul of art. (Hmmm, maybe art history really was important....)
From there she began her extensive career. Jane experimented with many different styles and media, which ranged from children's books, to three-dimensional paintings, to abstract expressionism, to sculpture. A very interesting turn in her career were her “aerial” landscapes, done in mixed media on canvas, in she meant to convey a landscape from above abstractly.
I find her versatility inspiring, and since I have been on an abstract expressionism kick, I figured she should be included too. Jane was a part of the abstract expressionism movement in America that started post-WWII with artists such as Jackson Pollock, (who seems to be the inspiration for almost every artist in this movement who followed in his footsteps). It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.
On the quality of interiority in her works: "It is also an attempt to penetrate the surface of an object, presenting not only the outside but what occurs within - the essence or core." -Jane Frank
Abstract expressionist, trained in commercial arts, mixed media goddess, and mom.
Jane Frank, born in 1918, died in 1986, was a pupil of Hans Hofmann. Her work can be categorized stylistically as abstract expressionist, but on ewho draws primary inspiration from the natural world, particularly landscape, or landscape “as metaphor”, as she once explained. Her extensive schooling includes attendance at Park School, the Maryland Institute of Arts and Sciences (now MICA), New York's Parsons School of Design, and the New Theater School in New York. She then began seriously painting in 1940, but having a background entirely in commercial art, she had to work hard to seriously change her approach to painting. She studied the art and history of painting extensively, in order to learn all that she could about the heart and soul of art. (Hmmm, maybe art history really was important....)
From there she began her extensive career. Jane experimented with many different styles and media, which ranged from children's books, to three-dimensional paintings, to abstract expressionism, to sculpture. A very interesting turn in her career were her “aerial” landscapes, done in mixed media on canvas, in she meant to convey a landscape from above abstractly.
I find her versatility inspiring, and since I have been on an abstract expressionism kick, I figured she should be included too. Jane was a part of the abstract expressionism movement in America that started post-WWII with artists such as Jackson Pollock, (who seems to be the inspiration for almost every artist in this movement who followed in his footsteps). It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.
On the quality of interiority in her works: "It is also an attempt to penetrate the surface of an object, presenting not only the outside but what occurs within - the essence or core." -Jane Frank
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