Lilly Fenichel (1927–2016), was an American painter who explored abstraction through a wide range of media and approaches, with her various periods linked together by a common emphasis on color harmonies and expressive, often calligraphic gesture. Her earliest work is associated with second-generation Bay Area

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 ...

Early years

Lilly Fenichel was born in

Vienna, Austria en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, to a Jewish family. Her father was a doctor and her mother a fashion designer; the psychoanalyst

Otto Fenichel Otto Fenichel (2 December 1897 in Vienna – 22 January 1946 in Los Angeles) was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation". Education and psychoanalytic affiliations Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already ...

was her uncle. In 1939, following the Nazi invasion of Austria, her family fled the country, going first to the United Kingdom and then to the United States, where they settled in Hollywood. Fenichel studied art at the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art In ...

(1946–47) and

Los Angeles City College Los Angeles City College (LACC) is a public community college in East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard on the former campus ...

(1947–48). She then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to study 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 ...

(1950–52), where she worked with the painters Edward Corbett, Hassel Smith,

Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract pai ...

, and David Park. She started showing her work in the early 1950s. Her vigorously gestural, often black-and-white paintings from the 1960s and 1970s are grouped with work by other West Coast second-generation Abstract Expressionists such as

Joan Brown Joan Brown (born Joan Vivien Beatty; February 13, 1938 – October 26, 1990) was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.Glu ...

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (March 31, 1929 – November 11, 1989) was a visual artist who first became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work ''The Rose' ...

, and

Sonia Gechtoff Sonia Gechtoff (September 25, 1926 – February 1, 2018) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium was painting but she also created drawings and prints. Early life and education Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia t ...

. Stylistically, her work from this period shows the influence of both West Coast Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. Of her own work from this period, Fenichel has said it was Abstract Expressionism "with a lot of drawing in it." Unable to support herself with her painting, she worked as a photographers' stylist and as an art director and costume designer for movies. She served as the art director for the 1975 film ''

Lucky Lady ''Lucky Lady'' is a 1975 American comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Liza Minnelli, Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds and Robby Benson. Its story takes place in 1930 during Prohibition in the United States. The film is notable fo ...

'' starring

Liza Minnelli Liza May Minnelli ( ; born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy ...

Later career

In the 1950s, Fenichel visited her former teacher Edward Corbett in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

. In 1981, she moved there herself, settling in nearby

Talpa Talpa may refer to: Places * Talpa, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran * Talpa, Teleorman, a commune in Teleorman County, Romania * Talpa, a village in Cândeşti Commune, Botoşani County, Romania * Talpa, a village in Bârgăuani Com ...

. Fenichel's paintings done in New Mexico range from hard-edged geometric abstractions of the 1980s to sensual, lyrical studies of organic forms from the early 2000s; both show the influence of color field painting and kinship with the work of artists such as

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

. One critic wrote that "all of Lilly Fenichel's paintings are related to nature, even when they are abstract to the point of being non-objective." In the early 1980s, Fenichel also began working with wood and

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

, creating minimalist sculptures in soft colors. Fenichel's work has been shown mainly in the western United States, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (California), the

Harwood Museum of Art The Harwood Museum of Art is located in Taos, New Mexico. Founded in 1923 by the Harwood Foundation, it is the second oldest art museum in New Mexico. Its collections include a wide range of Hispanic works and visual arts from the Taos Society ...

(Taos), and the

Albuquerque Museum The Albuquerque Museum, formerly known as the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, is a public art and history museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The museum is located in the Old Town area and is operated by the City of Albuquerque Department of ...

among other institutions. She has been awarded three Pollock-Krasner Grants. In 2014 the David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe mounted a retrospective of her work entitled "Rewind<>Replay: 1950–2014". As of 2014, Fenichel was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her painting career has spanned six decades so far.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenichel, Lilly 2016 deaths Artists from Vienna American abstract artists Abstract expressionist artists Modern painters American women painters 20th-century American women artists Chouinard Art Institute alumni California Institute of the Arts alumni American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Austrian expatriates in the United States 1927 births 21st-century American women