New York artist Audrey Flack, a pioneer of the Photorealism movement, died on June 28 in Southampton, New York, at the age of 93. Her death was confirmed by her former dealer, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, and her current dealer, Hollis Taggart.
“We mourn the passing of a true artistic legend who has left an indelible mark on the history of American art,” said Hollis Taggart, founder of the eponymous gallery. “Audrey’s boundless creativity defined her seven-decade career, as she constantly innovated and found new ways to express herself.”
Born in New York City in 1931, Fleck was educated at Cooper Union before winning a scholarship to the Yale School of Art, where she studied with the geometric abstract painter Josef Albers. She immersed herself in the artistic scene of downtown New York City, hanging out with prominent Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. However, Fleck’s path took a different turn, and she became a key figure in the Photorealist movement of the 1960s.
Flack’s photorealist work often involved creating large still lifes based on her own photographs and news clippings. Her 1964 painting Kendi Racing It is often cited as one of her earliest works in the photorealist style. Throughout her work, Fleck focused on female objects such as jewelry and makeup, such as Leonardo’s wife (1974), a still life, is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Flack is also interested in mythology and religious imagery. Her focus on mythology is particularly prominent in her sculptural practice, which began in the 1980s and aimed to subvert the prevalence of male-centric statues. A key example is her 2006 golden statue Recording Angellocated outside the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
In recent years, Fleck has moved away from photorealism to a style she calls “post-pop baroque,” incorporating themes of female empowerment and references to religion, politics, and pop culture. Self-portrait with heart-shaped flame (2022) was recently shown earlier this year in an exhibition at Hollis Taggart titled “Darkness Brings Stars” Her work is in the collections of several major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others.
This year, Fleck published her memoir, Darkness descends upon the starswhich looks back on her career, her personal story of abuse in her first marriage, and raising a verbal daughter with autism. An exhibition of her upcoming work, Audrey Flack Now, is scheduled to be on view at the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York, from October 13, 2024 to April 6, 2025.
