Fran Herndon is an American artist associated with the central poets of the

San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts ...

. Trained at the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

(now the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

) in print-making and

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

, Herndon is known for her

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

and

collages Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

, many of which were produced in tandem with Jack Spicer's poetry, and intended for joint viewing and reading. More recently, Herndon has branched out to work in

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

and

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

s. Herndon's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions dating back to at least 1963, during which Herndon's "Grail Series" works were a part of the group exhibit, ''Exhibit''. More recently, Herndon has had three solo shows in 2011 at Altman Siegel Gallery, Canessa Park Gallery, and The Apartment. In 2010, her work was part of the group exhibition, ''Breathless Days 1959-1960: A Chronotropic Experiment'', at the

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in an award-winning building designed by architect Peter Cardew and o ...

. For most of her career, Herndon had no dealer and rarely sold her work, and her reputation was therefore greatest amongst fellow

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the ...

and

poets A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. Her silence is typical of the artistic circles she ran in: San Francisco being far off the art map, San Francisco artists indulged in a kind of "nihilism," rarely "took any precautions to preserve their work," and " cumentation was unheard of." Since 2011 she has been represented by the Altman Siegel Art Gallery.

Early life and work

Born in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

and of Native American ancestry, Herndon lived for a time in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where she met her then-husband Jim Herndon. The Herndons settled in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, where they had two children: Jay Herndon (1957-) and Jack Herndon (1960-). It was in San Francisco that she met the central poets associated with the

Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. H ...

Robin Blaser Robin Francis Blaser (May 18, 1925 – May 7, 2009) was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada. Personal background Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack ...

, Robert Duncan, and

Jess Jess is a unisex given name, often a short form (hypocorism) of Jessica, Jesse, Jessie, etc., and a surname. It may refer to: Given name * Jess Atkinson (born 1961), American football player * Jess Cain (1926–2008), American radio host * Jes ...

. More specifically, they were the poets of the

Berkeley Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts ...

, which was later "absorbed into a broader aesthetic, geographical, and temporal movement called the

", alongside the clashing

Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...

aesthetics of

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...

, and

Philip Whalen Philip Glenn Whalen (October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002) was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation. Biography Born in Portland, Oregon, Whalen grew up in The Dalles f ...

. Her tutelage under and collaborations with

, in particular, resulted in various

created in tandem with Spicer's

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

. His verse "allowed the poetry he wrote while working with Herndon to grow flat, more literal, incantatory, till it approaches the emotionally numb."

Artistic practices

Alongside fellow artists such as

Helen Adam Helen Adam (December 2, 1909 in Glasgow, Scotland – September 19, 1993 in New York City) was a Scottish poet, collagist and photographer who was part of a literary movement contemporaneous to the Beat Generation that occurred in San Francisc ...

Paul Alexander (American artist) Paul R. Alexander (September 3, 1937 – June 14, 2021) was an American commercial artist and illustrator.Jess Jess is a unisex given name, often a short form (hypocorism) of Jessica, Jesse, Jessie, etc., and a surname. It may refer to: Given name * Jess Atkinson (born 1961), American football player * Jess Cain (1926–2008), American radio host * Jes ...

and

Tom Field Thomas Geoffrey Field (born 14 March 1997) is a professional footballer who plays as a left back for Canadian Premier League club Cavalry FC. A product of the Brentford Academy, Field graduated into the senior team in 2016. A fringe player, h ...

, Herndon contributed to the development of a socially engaged school of art in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

that "challenged the values of the

East Coast East Coast may refer to: Entertainment * East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop * East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017 * East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004 * East Coast FM, a ra ...

School of

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

." The visual and literary arts were crucial to creating local,

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

and

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

variants of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. Her work has been described as one of "quiet xtremism and linked, in that way, to other

artists connected to the

such as Harry Jacobus,

Jess Collins Jess Collins (August 6, 1923 – January 2, 2004), simply known today as Jess, was an American visual artist. Biography Jess was born Burgess Franklin Collins in Long Beach, California. He was drafted into the military and worked on the product ...

, Paul Alexander, and Tom Field. An example of Herndon's early work is her series of

made in 1963 based on ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

.'' These collages were later published as a part of Jim Herndon's memoirs of the collaboration between Herndon and

, ''Everything as Expected''. Herndon continues to be invested in the convergence of the written and visual arts: her prints continue to be best viewed with "their intended volume of poetry" and her collages often make use of "clipped text swirling about in a manner somewhere between that of

Richard F. Outcault Richard Felton Outcault (; January 14, 1863 – September 25, 1928) was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the series ''The Yellow Kid'' and ''Buster Brown'' and is considered a key pioneer of the modern comic strip. Life and career ...

's Yellow Kid comics and Richard Hamilton's similar collages." Spicer impressed upon Herndon his own poetic strategies of "applying practical magic and using

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

to express the existential conflict and social upheaval that was central to the artistic ground swell of the

Beat movement The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...

" which she, in turn, absorbed and put to use in her own practices of

and

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

. As her artistic practice matured, Fran Herndon became Spicer's closest collaborator. In an interview with Lewis Ellingham, she said that "He picersaw in me something greater than ''I'' saw in myself – I think." Writing for SFMOMA's OpenSpace project,

Norma Cole Norma Cole (born May 12, 1945) is a Canadian poet, visual artist, translator, and curator. An Anglophone Canadian by birth, Cole learned French at an early age, and went on to translate the works of French poets Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collo ...

stated that "Jack would come over to Fran and Jim Herndon's place in the evening and read the new poems to them. During the day Fran would walk up to the

and create the beautiful, mysterious

that would be in the book with the

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

." The close relationships between Herndon's practice and poetic practices, and between Herndon the artist and the many poets who at one point or another drew upon ideas coming out of the San Francisco Renaissance is apparent. At Herndon's 2012 solo exhibition at Vancouver's Blanket Gallery, for example, curator Lee Plested organised a special poetry reading including

Meredith Quartermain Meredith Quartermain, née Yearsley (born October 1, 1950) is a Canadian poet, novelist and story writer who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Life Quartermain was born in Toronto, Ontario and lived in a variety of locations in chi ...

, Gary Thomas Morse,

's partner, David Farwell, and

George Stanley Colonel George Francis Gillman Stanley (July 6, 1907September 13, 2002) was a Canadian historian, author, soldier, teacher, public servant, and designer of the Canadian flag. Early life and education George F.G. Stanley was born in Calgary, Alb ...

, whose 2003 poetry collection, "A Tall, Serious Girl" features Herndon's painting, "Eye on the Sea." Her works continue to be curated and shown by poets such as

Kevin Killian Kevin Killian (December 24, 1952 – June 15, 2019) was an American poet, author, editor, and playwright primarily of LGBT literature. ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'', which he co-edited with Peter Gizzi, wo ...

, just as she began her career by "showing at the experimental "poets' galleries" of the period (the Peacock Gallery, Buzz)."

Editorial work

In 1959, Herndon served as the art editor of the poetry/art magazine ''J'', often credited as the first journal of the "

mimeo revolution The Mimeo Revolution (or Mimeograph Revolution) of the 1960s and 1970s was an active period of small-scale, non-commercial, literary publishing facilitated by the accessibility of the mimeograph. It is distinguished from the traditional private pre ...

and the harbinger of hundreds of successors in the 60s and 70s." The magazine was produced by Spicer via

mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...

in San Francisco. Herndon's contribution to the magazine was crucial: its "playful, even colorful, formal character thanks to Fran Herndon, who edited the artwork for the magazine" in combination with an "uncompromising editorial stance" led to ''Js establishment as a "representative of the best of the mimeograph revolution." Together, Spicer and Herndon edited the first five issues of the magazine. ''J'' was named after the Herndons' first son, Jay.

Solo exhibitions

Blanket Contemporary Art

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. (2012). Curated by

Guest curated b
Lee Plested

. (2011) *Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco, California. (September–October 2011) Curated by

an
Lee Plested
ref name="artnet1"> *The Apartment,

. (2011)
Canessa Park Gallery

. (2009)
Canessa Park Gallery

. (2005) *Buzz Gallery,

. (1965) Curated by Paul Alexander, Bill Brodecky, Larry Fagin

Group exhibitions

*''Breathless Days 1959-1960: A Chronotropic Experiment'',

. (April - June 2010) *''Other People's Projects: Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian''
White Columns

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. (2006) *''Five Habitats: Squatting at Langton, Week One,''

New Langton Arts New Langton Arts (active 1975 – 2009) was a not-for-profit arts organization focusing on contemporary art founded in 1975 and located the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Part of the first wave of alternative art spaces ...

. (2006) *''Many Happy Returns,'
High Energy Constructs

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. (2006) Organized by Michael Smoler. *''Poetry and its Arts: Bay Area Interactions 1954-2004'',

California Historical Society The California Historical Society (CHS) is the official historical society of California. It was founded in 1871, by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University. It was officially designated as the Californian state hi ...

. (December 2004-April 2005) *''In Search of Orpheus: Some Bay Area Poets & Painters 1945-65''
Charles H. Scott Gallery

. (1995) *''Jack Spicer Symposium and White Rabbit Conference,''

Intersection for the Arts Intersection for the Arts, established in 1965, is the oldest alternative non-profit organization, non-profit art space in San Francisco, California. Intersection's reading series is the longest continuous reading series outside of an academic in ...

. (1986) *Peacock Gallery,

. (October–November 1963) Curated by

Collections

*''Death of Kid Paret'', 1963,

*"Jack Spicer on the Beach", 1962,

*"Portrait of Robin Blaser", 1963,

Catalogues

*Benzan, Carla, Allison Collins, Shaun Dacey, Aldona Dziedziejko, Darrin Martens, Sarah Todd, and Scott Watson. ''Breathless Days: 1959-1960''. *Alexander, Paul,

Lyn Brockway Lyn Brockway (born 1929) is an American painter who was active in the San Francisco abstract expressionism movement in the 1950s. Biography Having grown up in San Francisco, Lyn Brockway went on to attend the University of California (Berkeley ...

, Ralph T. Field, Fran Herndon, Harry Jacobus, and Jess. ''Exhibition''. Peacock Gallery, 1963.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herndon, Fran American women artists Artists from North Carolina 1927 births Living people San Francisco Art Institute alumni Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area 21st-century American women