Suzan Frecon (born 1941 in Mexico, Pennsylvania) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York. She is represented by Lawrence Markey, San Antonio and

David Zwirner David Zwirner (born October 23, 1964) is a German art dealer and owner of the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City, London, Hong Kong, and Paris. Early life and education Zwirner was born in Cologne, West Germany. The son of art dealer Rudolf ...

, New York. Frecon received a BFA from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

, University Park, Pennsylvania and subsequently studied painting at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

, Strasbourg, France and École Nationale Superiéure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France.

Work

Suzan Frecon is a painter known for her large scale abstract works. She describes her artistic practice as a quest, saying, "I seek for my paintings to reach a high, pure form of abstraction, so that they exist on their own strength as painting, without the embellishment, or distraction, or subject or story." She is critically acclaimed for her arrangement of color, form, and texture and for the philosophical resonance of her art. While best known for her large, immersive oil paintings, Frecon's small watercolors, delicate works on paper, constitute a significant part of her work. Frecon has been making watercolors and oil paintings simultaneously for more than two decades. she began concentrating more intensely on the watercolors during an illness in the late 1980s when she needed a smaller format that didn't require as much physical labor.

Exhibitions

Frecon's first solo exhibition at

, New York was on view in the fall of 2010. On the occasion of the exhibition, a catalogue was published by Radius Books, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It features a text by art historian Joachim Pissarro as well as illustrations of her most recent large-scale oil paintings. Other major solo exhibitions include the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (2008),

Kunstmuseum Bern The Museum of Fine Arts Bern (German: ''Kunstmuseum Bern''), established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the de facto capital of Switzerland. Its holdings run from the Middle Ages to the present. It houses works by Paul Klee, Pab ...

, Bern, Switzerland (2006 and 2008), and The

Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...

, New York (2002). Recently, her work was the focus of another solo exhibition at David Zwirner, entitled ''oil paintings and sun''. Her work has also been included in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

in 2000 and 2010. Frecon's works are represented in the permanent collections of prominent institutions, including the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C.; The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York; the

, New York; the Menil Collection, Houston; and the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Awards

In 2001, she was awarded an individual support award from the

Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation was established in 1976. It is an American nonprofit organization that provides funding for the arts. History The Gottlieb Foundation was established after Adolph Gottlieb’s death in 1974. Esther Gottlieb ...

. From 2004, she has been a member of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts studios in Manhattan.

References

External links

Suzan Frecon, 2010 Whitney Biennial Artist
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Works in the permanent collection
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Form, Color, Illumination: Suzan Frecon
Monograph published by Menil Collection, Kunstmuseum Bern, and Yale University Press 2008
Work in the permanent collection
The Menil Collection, Houston. {{DEFAULTSORT:Frecon, Suzan Living people 1941 births Painters from New York (state) 21st-century American women painters

Work

Exhibitions

Awards

References

Further reading

External links