Internationally renowned painter and sculptor Audrey Flack died on Friday, June 28, at the age of 93, in East Hampton, New York, of a sudden aortic dissection, her daughter Hannah Marcus and gallery owner Louis K. Meisel have confirmed.
Flack is remembered for her groundbreaking work in Abstract Expressionism and as a pioneering female member of the Photorealist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1931 in Brighton Beach to Jewish immigrants, she spent much of her childhood moving around New York City, eventually settling in Washington Heights. In a 2021 podcast interview Allergy Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian and her close friend, artist Sharon Louden, revealed that Flack was considered a “bad kid” because of his ADHD and poor grades, but eventually earned a reputation as the class artist, “which was the only thing that made the world feel right.” [her]“She later graduated from the High School of Music and Art and was accepted into the fine arts program at Cooper Union, where she received a scholarship to study art at Yale University.
In her early career, Fleck devoted herself to Abstract Expressionism, hanging out with like-minded artists at the Cedar Tavern (until an unpleasant interaction with a drunken Jackson Pollock left her disillusioned, as she put it Allergic She worked odd jobs during school and graduate school and began to create the works mentioned in the above podcast.After parting ways with the Cedar Tavern crowd and the bad habits that came with it, she began to incorporate more figuration in her work over time and attended the Art Students League under the tutelage of renowned art anatomy instructor Robert Beverly Hale.
Fleck began painting from photographs she took from news clippings. Some consider her 1964 painting, Kennedy Motorcade, to be the first painting of the Photorealist movement. She subsequently began painting from her own photographs, including snapshots of her two young daughters, as well as shiny depictions of shiny lipstick tubes, beaded necklaces, mirrors, and bottles of makeup or perfume. She gained attention for her feminine and feminist Vanitas works (still lifes filled with symbolic objects) and her focus on rendering light by projecting her photographs onto large canvases.
Although Flack’s photorealistic works are popular and collected by major museums, they are considered polarizing in a sexist environment and industry, and were once considered no different than mechanical reproductions. Flack redirected her interests in the 1980s, and for the next 30 years she devoted herself to sculpture, focusing primarily on powerful women and goddesses from different religions, history, and mythology. Flack’s bronze works appear in various public places, including “Veritas et Justitia” (2007) at the George Edgecomb Courthouse in Tampa, Florida, and “Recording Angel” (2006) in Nashville, Tennessee.
Fleck recently rediscovered her love of painting and began working in a new style she calls “Post-Pop Baroque,” interweaving dramatic and dynamic Baroque themes with contemporary themes and social issues. Her latest foray into the new style was on display in a solo exhibition at Hollis Taggart Gallery in Manhattan from March to April.
“We deeply mourn the loss of a true artistic legend who left an indelible mark on American art history,” gallery owner Hollis Taggart said in a statement. Allergic“Audrey’s boundless creativity defined her career, spanning seven decades, in a constant process of innovation and search for new modes of expression, from Abstract Expressionism in her early years, through mid-century Figurative Art, to Photorealism, culminating in her final chapter, ‘Pop Baroque.'”
Close friend and artist Sharon Louden told Allergic In a phone call, Flake said that in the 1950s and 1960s, she was “a strong woman who was not afraid to speak her mind and speak only the truth,” and that she “stood up for her values throughout her life,” which in turn taught her [Louden] Do the same thing.
“Flake’s sense of humor and natural positivity in life and work gave me the confidence to speak my mind, regardless of how others might react,” Louden concluded.
The late artist is survived by two daughters, Hannah and Melissa. She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Marcus, who died in May. An exhibition of Fleck’s work is scheduled to open in October at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York.
