Acknowledgments

Marter, Joan

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Acknowledgments

Joan Marter (Editor)

Women of Abstract Expressionism

~It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many people who contributed to Women of Abstract Expressionism.

Author

Joan Marter (Editor)

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21115

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many people who contributed to Women of Abstract Expressionism. I have enjoyed the help and cooperation of independent scholars, individuals working within institutions, and the represented artists and their families.

The idea for this exhibition came in 2008, when I saw the noteworthy exhibition Action/Abstraction, organized by Norman Kleeblatt at the Jewish Museum in New York, and wondered about some of the “outlier” artists who today remain at the fringes of art historical accounts of Abstract Expressionism, but who were active participants at the time. I especially thought about some female Abstract Expressionists who have received scant mention in mainstream texts, whose paintings challenge the male-centric definition of the movement.

From the beginning, I looked to bring on an East Coast partner, and I found such a person in Joan Marter, who had done the only exhibition on this subject, in 1997. Joan was pleased to revisit the subject on a broader scale, and I thank her for her partnership; this catalogue speaks to her expertise.

Evaluating more than one hundred potential artists for inclusion was a huge task, and project assistant Jesse Laird Ortega’s research and communication have been crucial. She also wrote the excellent chronology printed in this volume. Curatorial assistant Renée Miller undertook many aspects of exhibition management and took the lead in securing image rights and photography.

The informative essays by scholars Robert Hobbs, Ellen Landau, Susan Landauer, and Joan Marter enrich this publication. Irving Sandler’s generous interview is especially appreciated. I also thank Aliza Edelman for researching the biographies included in this volume.

There are not sufficient accolades for the Denver Art Museum’s director of publications, Laura Caruso, who managed every aspect of this volume before we turned the book over to Yale University Press, including editorial oversight, fact-checking, project management, and coordination with Yale.

I give enormous thanks to Merle Chambers and Hugh Grant for their friendship and support of this multiyear project. I also thank Craig Ponzio for his special support and belief in this exhibition. Tom McCormick has been a good-natured advocate from the project’s earliest stages, generously providing expertise, introductions, and archival material. Mark Borghi is another ally whose expertise enriched this project. Dean Sobel, director of the Clyfford Still Museum, is always willing to share his knowledge, and I am lucky to have him right next door. I also welcome Rebecca Hart to the Denver Art Museum as Polly and Mark Addison Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and I look forward to her input.

Denver Art Museum staff contributed immensely. I appreciate the professionalism of Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, Heather Haldeman, and Lori Iliff, who proactively accomplished all registrarial responsibilities, including loan management, communication with venues, and shipping and insurance. Jill Desmond and Kara Kudzma kept the exhibition project on task. Exhibition designer Ben Griswold and experience and interpretation specialists Danielle St. Peter and Melora McDermott-Lewis made insightful and valuable contributions to the visitor experience in the exhibition. I also thank Alison Bowman and Arpie Chucovich in Development; Katie Ross in Marketing; Jeff Wells in Photography; and Kristy Bassuener, Shadia Lemus, and the rest of the team in Communications. Alex Dreas, Anna Estes, Claire Roseland Hoag, Erin Kirkland, Zoe Larkins, Kaitlin Maestas, and Alison Ricketson provided project assistance.

Frederick and Jan Mayer Director Christoph Heinrich’s enthusiasm and advocacy enabled this project to develop and to come to fruition. I greatly appreciate his scholarly and administrative support.

Artists Mary Abbott, Sonia Gechtoff, and Judith Godwin have been wonderful participants. Their interviews, included in a short film that the museum has produced, were not only helpful for this project but will serve as a source of information for scholars for years to come. Christopher and Hannelore Schwabacher, Brenda Webster, and Susannah and Miles Kelly shared stories of Abstract Expressionist artists who also happened to be mothers, making our understanding of these artists that much more real. I very much appreciate Helen Harrison’s lively account of Lee Krasner and her work in the Pollock-Krasner studio, where Krasner painted for many more years than did her more-famous husband. Many thanks go to Andrea Torrice for creating the outstanding film to accompany the exhibition, along with her on-site team of Bill Turnley, Alex Corn, Travis Conklin, and Leonard Levy.

All the lenders to this exhibition, both private and institutional, have my sincere gratitude for the trust they placed in this project. This exhibition would not be possible without the outstanding works they put under our stewardship.

I appreciate the helpfulness of Howard Agriesti, Susie Alldredge, René Paul Barilleaux, Peter Becker, Madelyn Berezov, Christa Blatchford, Michael Borghi, Rebeka Ceravolo, Maria Coltharp, Mag Dimond, Charles Duncan, Joan Eckels, Amaranth Ehrenhalt, David Eichholtz, Lilly Fenichel, Stuart Friedman, Kris Graves, Loretta Howard, David Keaton, Nathan Kernan, Nathan Kerr, Leah Levy, Edvard Lieber, Collette Loll, Michael Luyckx, Margaret Mathews-Berenson, Sherry Maurer, Laura Morris, Steven Nash, Barbara Nino, William O’Connor, Kira Osti, Christopher Scoates, Anita Shapolsky, Elizabeth Smith, Miriam Smith, Gary Snyder, Rex Stevens, Jennifer Stockman, Annette Stott, Alicia Thomas, and Cynthia Weisfield.

Finally, I look forward to collaborating with President and CEO Kathleen V. Jameson and Senior Curator Jonathan Stuhlman at the Mint Museum, and JoAnn McGrath Executive Director Elizabeth Armstrong and Donna and Cargill MacMillan, Jr., Director of Art Daniell Cornell at the Palm Springs Art Museum. I thank them for joining with us in presenting Women of Abstract Expressionism.

Gwen F. Chanzit, Curator

For more than a decade, I have intended to expand upon the exhibition Women and Abstract Expressionism, Painting and Sculpture, 1945–1959, which I curated in 1997. This exhibition, which featured seven women artists, was organized at Baruch College, City University of New York, and also shown at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton. Thanks to the Denver Art Museum and curator Gwen Chanzit, a more thorough study of the women of the Abstract Expressionist era has come to fruition. This fully illustrated publication features essays by leading scholars on Abstract Expressionism, a useful chronology, and informative artists’ biographies and selected readings.

With pleasure I thank my collaborators on this publication. My esteemed colleagues Ellen G. Landau and Robert Hobbs have written original, insightful essays for this book. Both have been recognized for their many contributions to scholarship on the New York School, and for this book, they have offered new ideas and a refreshing new “take” on this period. Susan Landauer has added considerably to the history of Abstract Expressionism with her essay on women artists on the West Coast. Readers will learn the importance of artists such as Clyfford Still, who taught Bay Area artists, and the distinctive circumstances of this artistic environment.

Special thanks go to Irving Sandler—among the leading authorities on Abstract Expressionist painters, The Club, the co-op galleries, and key events of the period—whom I had the privilege of interviewing in his home in 2013. An edited transcript appears in this volume.

This publication includes biographies of the artists included in the exhibition, along with those of others who were actively working as abstract artists in the late 1940s through 1950s. Aliza Edelman unearthed material on some unrecognized women artists from the Abstract Expressionist era and documented articles and reviews of their work. My hope is that these biographies will spur further research and lead to more opportunities for recognition for all these artists. Jesse Laird Ortega, project assistant at the Denver Art Museum, has been crucial to this undertaking in myriad ways, and her chronology is a thoroughly researched account of the exhibitions and personal events that shaped the lives of women artists from the 1940s to 1960.

My acknowledgments extend to the staff of the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For help with some key information in my research I would like to thank Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House in East Hampton, and Ellen G. Landau. I extend special gratitude to my excellent coeditor of the Woman’s Art Journal, Margaret Barlow, who has been essential to all of my writing projects for many years. Abundant gratitude goes to Laura Caruso, director of publications at the Denver Art Museum, for her professionalism and her unwavering commitment to this publication. Finally, I offer my sincere thanks to Patricia Fidler, Katherine Boller, Tamara Schechter, Mary Mayer, and Heidi Downey at Yale University Press for their painstaking efforts in producing this volume.

Joan Marter, Editor and Project Co-Organizer

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