On View
Not on viewObject number1961/2.294
Untitled Wood Figure on Two Pedestals
Artist
Mary Frank
(American, 1933-)
Date1959
Mediumwood
DimensionsObject: 59 in. × 26 1/2 in. × 16 in. (149.9 × 67.3 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Longview Foundation
Exhibition History"Longview Foundation Grants 1962," KIA (Sept. 1963).
"Off the Wall: Art in Three Dimensions," KIA (Sept. 17 - Dec. 4, 2011).
"Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s," KIA Galleries 3 & 4 (January 21 - May 7, 2023).Label TextIn 1949, at 16, Mary Frank met and fell in love with photographer Robert Frank, nine years her elder. Displeased with his daughter’s “unladylike” relationship, Mary’s father sent her to a psychiatric institution. She remained in solitary confinement there for two weeks before her mother retrieved her. Mary recalls, “The experience of solitary confinement had a profound effect on me. It left me with a terrible idea of what it is to be alone.” The next year, Mary became pregnant, and with her mother’s permission (as she was a minor), she married Robert Frank.
To Mary, Robert was the artist of the family, and she just “made sculptures,” mostly small, wooden abstract forms. Although largely self-taught, Mary was influenced by Max Beckmann, Hans Hofmann, and Cuban-American ceramist Margaret Ponce Israel. Her first exhibition, a group of sketches, was held in 1958 at the Poindexter Gallery in New York City. However, Mary always felt on the fringes of the art scene, and therefore free to create her own aesthetic path. She did not follow the popular aesthetics of the Abstract Expressionists in New York at the time.
In the 1950s, Frank’s wood sculptures grew in size, and their forms became unrestrained and more abstract. However, she clarifies that they are never fully abstract and are always rooted in natural forms. Frank was also careful to make forms that shift visually depending on the viewer's angle and perspective. [Label for "Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s”, 2023]
