Freilicher, Jane

Freilicher, Jane frīˈlĭkər [key] 1924–2014, American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Jane Niederhoffer; studied Hans Hoffmann School (1947), Brooklyn College (B.A. 1947), Columbia (M.A. 1948). Though influenced by the abstract expressionism of her youth, she nonetheless remained independent throughout her career, creating intensely personal realistic paintings—Long Island landscapes, New York cityscapes, interiors, and still lifes. She consistently rejected prevailing artistic fashion to produce bright yet subtly colored, witty, quiet, urbane, and incandescently atmospheric paintings and prints. Living and working in New York City and Water Mill, Long Island, during the 1950s and 60s, Freilicher was part of a group of artists that included the figurative painters Larry Rivers, Nell Blaine, and Fairfield Porter and the New York School poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O'Hara.

See J. Ashbery et al., Jane Freilicher (1986); study by K. Kertess (2004); J. Quilter, Jane Freilicher: A Painter among Poets (2013).

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