[caption id="attachment_44646" align="aligncenter" width="1217"]
Artwork by Jane Frielicher, left, and Jane Wilson, right, will be on show at the Parrish this month and next. Photo by John Jonas Gruen.[/caption]
By Dawn Watson
For all that Jane Wilson and Jane Freilicher had in common, the two East End painters were still different artists with unique visions and approaches to their work.
Often mentioned in the same breath, there are many notable similarities between the two. The Janes, as they are often called, were both born in 1924 and eventually made their way out east, where they made names for themselves as serious artists whose work represented the natural world.
The landscape artists, who also created a fair number of sought-after still life works and portraits, were included in a tribe of artists often associated as the second generation of Abstract Expressionism, though each moved on from the abstract in their work. Socially, the painters ran in the same circles with the likes of Fairfield Porter, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Mary Abbott, Jasper Johns, Roland Pease and Tibor De Nagy, to name a few. The Janes were also very good friends; such good friends that they and their husbands—John Jonas Gruen and Joe Hazan, married to Ms. Wilson and Ms. Freilicher, respectively, —were housemates, and studio partners, at a home on Flying Point Road in Water Mill for a couple of summers in the late 1950s.
[caption id="attachment_44649" align="alignright" width="400"]
Jane Frielicher. Poppies and Peonies, 1981.Oil on linen. 36 x 36 From the collection of Cheryl and Blair Effron.[/caption]
Even though each pursued her own distinctly compelling approach, they were used to being lumped together, and acknowledged such.
“There was some sort of affinity in our painting,” said Ms. Freilicher in an interview of her relationship with Ms. Wilson. “But it wasn’t actually that we influenced each other.”
But, especially when viewed side by side, their work is strikingly unique, says Parrish Art Museum Chief Curator Alicia Longwell, who has selected a few dozen such examples, which will soon hang in “Worlds Seen and Unseen: The Art of Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson” at the Water Mill-based museum. Ms. Freilicher, who abandoned abstraction early in her career, focused on what she called the “seen” in her work, while Ms. Wilson sought to convey unseen “moments of strong sensation” in hers.
“They were both extraordinary artists, and wonderful women,” says Ms. Longwell of the two painters, who both recently passed away—Ms. Freilicher in 2014 and Ms. Wilson in 2015—and whom she knew personally. “There were often associated in life, they sort of got conflated in a way but fundamentally they were quite different painters.”
Bringing the two together for a shared exhibition was one way to show their differences, says Ms. Longwell, who notes that the Parrish took a similar tack last year when it exhibited the work of Robert Dash and Fairfield Porter together in an exhibition.
[caption id="attachment_44650" align="alignleft" width="400"]
Jane Wilson. Tempest, 1993. Oil on linen. 70 x 70. Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York[/caption]
“When you see those paintings in proximity, you see the differences” she explains.
The “Seen and Unseen” show will open on Sunday, October 25, and will hang through January 18. The exhibit contains a selection of approximately 20 paintings by each artist and will also feature a variety of images of the Janes and their contemporaries, including a number of photographs taken by Mr. Gruen and a series of images by Douglas Rodewald, who shot the pair of painters for a 1957 Coronet magazine feature on Ms. Wilson. “Seen and Unseen” also boasts Fairfield Porter portraits of both Janes.
“I'm thrilled by the quality, there was no hesitating to lend the works,” says Ms. Longwell. “The stars aligned in a way to bring this moment, snapshots of each, to us for this show. I hope the Janes would be pleased seeing the end result.”
“Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson: Seen and Unseen” opens with a reception on Sunday, October 25, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and hangs through January 18. Other supporting events include
“Circles of Friendship: Freilicher and Wilson” on November 7 and “Brain Food: Alicia Longwell on Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson: Seen and Unseen” on November 12. Learn more at www.parrishart.org.
