Jane Frank
Encyclopedia
Jane Schenthal Frank (born Jane Babette Schenthal) (July 25, 1918 – May 31, 1986) was an American artist. She studied with Hans Hofmann
and Norman Carlberg
and is known as a painter
, sculptor, mixed media
artist, and textile artist. Her landscape-like, mixed-media abstract paintings are included in some important public collections, including those of the Corcoran Gallery of Art
, the Baltimore Museum of Art
, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum
.
, Jane Frank can in much of her work be categorized stylistically as an abstract expressionist, but one who draws primary inspiration from the natural world, particularly landscape
— landscape "as metaphor
", she once explained. Her later painting refers more explicitly to aerial landscapes, while her sculpture
tends toward minimalism
. Chronologically and stylistically, Jane Frank's work in totality straddles both the modern
and the contemporary
(even postmodern) periods. She referred to her works generally as "inscapes
".
Jane Frank's paintings and mixed media
works on canvas are in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art
("Amber Ambience", 1964), the Smithsonian American Art Museum
("Frazer's Hog Cay #18", 1968; image link here), the Baltimore Museum of Art
("Winter's End", 1958), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
at Cornell University
("Red Painting", 1966) http://insight-test.library.cornell.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/CORNELL~1~1~7202~80150030:Red-Painting?qvq=w4s:/when/20th+century/1966/;lc:CORNELL~3~1,CORNELL~9~1,CORNELL~4~1,MOAC~100~1,CORNELL~13~1,CORNELL~5~1,CORNELL~1~1,CORNELL-BRD~16~1,FBC~100~1,Stanford~6~1,CORNELL~10~1,CORNELL~15~1,CORNELL~14~1,CUDCIA~1~1,HFJ1~1~1,CORNELL-VIC~3~3,PRATTPRT~12~12,JCB~1~1,PRATTPRT~13~13,JCBBOOKS~1~1,BardBar~1~1,RUMSEY~8~1,ADW-CORNELL~3~1,HOOVER~1~1,PRATTPRT~9~9,cumap~2~2,CORNELL~2~1,PRATTPRT~21~21,CORNELL-AER~2~2,RUMSEY~9~1,ESTATE~2~1,CORNELL-Asia~2~2,LTUHSS~20~20,ChineseArt-ENG~1~1&mi=10&trs=38],the Arkansas Arts Center
(AAC: image here) in Little Rock ("Web Of Rock", 1960), and the Evansville Museum
("Quarry III", 1963). Her works are in many other public, academic, corporate, and private collections.
Jane Frank (when she was still Jane Schenthal) attended the progressive Park School
and received her initial artistic training at the Maryland Institute of Arts and Sciences (now known as MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art
), earning in 1935 a diploma in commercial art
and fashion
illustration
[Watson-Jones]. She then acquired further training in New York City
at what is now the Parsons School of Design (then called the New York School of Fine and Applied Art), from which she graduated in 1939 [Stanton]. In New York she also studied at the New Theatre School. Her schooling complete, she began working in advertising
design and acting in summer stock theater. From the sources, it is unclear whether she worked in these fields while still in New York, or only after returning to Baltimore. We do know, however, that she began painting
seriously in 1940.
" and that when she began painting seriously, she had to "put behind me everything I had so carefully learned in the schools" (p. 34). She began a study of the history of painting
and "went through a progression of spatial conceptions" (p. 35) from cave painting
through the Renaissance
, then concentrating on Cezanne, Picasso, and De Kooning
. "I was also much concerned with texture
, and heavy paint", she adds (p. 35).
, she married Herman Benjamin Frank in 1941. According to the biography in "Baltimore County Women, 1930-1975" listed below, Jane had previously been working as a commercial art
ist "for department store
s and advertising
agencies", but she "gave up her career in commercial art
for marriage and a family" (p. 16). After marrying, she signed her worked consistently as "Jane Frank", apparently never including a maiden name or middle initial. Her husband, a builder
, constructed their home, including a studio
for his wife. With the initial demands of a new marriage and family presumably beginning to relax a bit, Jane Frank returned seriously to painting
in 1947 (according to Stanton, p. 9).
In the following decade, while raising a family and rapidly developing as a serious painter
, the young mother also illustrated three children's books. Monica Mink (1948) featured, along with Jane Frank's illustrations, a whimsical text by the artist herself, entirely in verse, relating a tale in which (according to the review published by the National Council of Teachers of English
) "In rhyme the obstreperous Monica Mink 'who wouldn't listen and didn't think' is finally taught that 'all Mother Minks know best'." http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22who+wouldn%27t+listen+and+didn%27t+think%22&btnG=Search+Books. Thomas Yoseloff's The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel
(1957, New York
), featured Jane Frank's block prints, which already show a penchant for collage-like textural juxtapositions and strong diagonal composition. Jane Frank's 1986 obituary in the Baltimore Sun mentions that she published a third children's book, entitled Eadie the Pink Elephant, with both text and pictures by the artist, and this is confirmed in an excerpt from Publishers Weekly available online http://books.google.com/books?q=%22eadie+the+pink+elephant%22&btnG=Search+Books.
(see below) mentions that twice in the 20 years after 1947, Jane Frank suffered from illnesses which "interrupted the work for long periods". The first of these catastrophes was a serious car accident in 1952, requiring multiple major surgeries and extensive convalescence, and the second was a "serious and potentially life-threatening illness" soon after her 1958 solo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art
. The latter illness was so severe, according to Stanton, that it interrupted Jane Frank's painting
work for about two years.
in Provincetown, Massachusetts
, and this mentoring gave her a jolt of inspiration and encouragement. She soon had solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art
(1958), the Corcoran Gallery of Art
(1962), the Bodley Gallery
in New York (1963) and Goucher College
(1963), among others.
She also, in 1962 (1961 according to some sources), won a Rinehart
Fellowship
, enabling her to study with Norman Carlberg
http://www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000160.html at the Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art
. This might seem a sudden and late detour away from painterly pursuits, but it is really a logical step: the canvases in the 1962 Corcoran show, such as "Crags and Crevices" and "Rockscape II" http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/KEN20080208_5437/862.jpghttp://image.artfact.com/housePhotos/sloankenyon/03/164703/H1039-L06351266.jpg?h=383D6C361CBAC14AD40BEE07C6BA3057, already feature passages that are sculpturally "built up" with thick mounds of gesso
(or "spackle", as Stanton tends to call it).
The single best source on Jane Frank is The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank (1968), by Phoebe B. Stanton (the art history professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University
who died in 2003). Stanton's text provides a guide to Jane Frank's life and work, and there is a helpful and liberal use of quotations from the artist herself, enabling the reader to understand how Frank's thinking evolved, especially from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. The book (out of print but still in many public and university art libraries) also contains a wealth of biographical information and many large plate reproductions of the artist's works, some in color. There are also photographs of the artist.
Jane Frank's preoccupation with space was evident even before her paintings became overtly "sculptural" in their use of mixed media
. Of the paintings in the 1962 Corcoran Gallery show, she tells Phoebe Stanton: "I was trying to pit mass against void and make it look as though there were passages that went way back - that's why 'crevice' is in so many of the titles" (Stanton, p. 15). Indeed, "Crags and Crevices" (70"x50", oil and spackle on canvas), completed in 1961, dominated the show.
, pebbles, what appears to be crushed graphite
or silica, and even glued-on patches of separately painted and encrusted canvas
(canvas collage
) - to her jagged, abstract expressionist paintings. "I wanted work that was painterly
but with an actual three-dimensional space", she later wrote (Yoseloff 1975, pp. 37–39). The oil painting
technique itself varies widely, from heavy daubs and stabs of the palette knife
to watery
or inky effects. Occasionally a very thick impasto
will be peppered with minute pits, so that it looks a bit like sandstone
eroded by wind-blown dirt. There are even crinkly, web-like areas which somewhat resemble (while clearly not being) batique or tie-dye
. Sometimes the paint appears smeared with mud or mixed with sand, though it's hard to be sure. The 1963 work pictured at the top of this page is a good example, as is "Plum Point" (1964). Jane Frank's first solo show at New York
's Bodley Gallery
(1963), as well as her 1965 solo show at Baltimore's International Gallery, featured many of these radically dense and variegated mixed media
paintings.
underneath (so-called "double canvases" - and sometimes triple canvases), with painted-on "false shadows", etc. - increasingly invoking the third dimension, creating tactile, sculptural effects while remaining within the convention of the framed, rectangular oil painting. The apertures also suggest a view into some sort of psychological interior, as though the second canvas - seen only partially, through the hole in the forward canvas - were some half-concealed secret, perhaps even another whole painting that we will never see.
Stanton (p. 24) also notes that Jane Frank worked out a method - unspecified - of stiffening the apertures' often jagged edges so that they held their shape and flatness. These creations are a type of "shaped canvas
", though obviously very different from the shaped canvases of Frank Stella
and others more commonly associated with this term.
In much of her output before the late 1960s, Frank seems less interested in color than in tonality and texture, often employing the gray scale
to create a sense of depth or of motion from light to dark, this frequently moving in a diagonal (as in "Winter's End", 1958), and otherwise employing one basic hue
(as with the earthy reds in "Plum Point", 1964). However, the later, "windowed" paintings show a sharper interest in vivid color relationships: indeed, Yoseloff (p. 20) notes that with the later paintings "she has gone to bolder colors". This is especially true, as he notes, in the "aerial" paintings, of which an early and monumental example is "Aerial View no. 1" (1968, 60 inches by 84 inches, collection of the Turner Auditorium complex at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
, Johns Hopkins University
). This was one of the artist's favorites, according to Baltimore County Women [see below].
" usually associated with American abstract expressionism
, they also had virtually nothing to do with the pop art
and minimalism
which were then the rage of the 1960s New York art scene. Furthermore, they bore little resemblance to the serene "color field
" paintings of Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler
, or Mark Rothko
. Whether brooding or exuberant, the (as it were) geologically deposited, erupted, eroded, and gouged canvases of Jane Frank stand apart from all else. Perhaps this style could be called "geomorphic abstraction" - though apparently no such term can be found as a stylistic category in art history books.
This standoffish aesthetic position, her chosen departure from the career-making New York
scene, and the fact that her overall output was not very large (by some standards at least), were factors that limited her career and her contemporary impact on the course of American art
. Yet perhaps, as time goes on, present-day art lovers who get to know these pieces will agree with Professor Stanton that they are powerful and beautiful creations, worthy of contemplation and admiration on their intrinsic merits - regardless of what was supposedly fashionable in 1960-something:
, i.e., sculptures properly speaking, as opposed to "sculptural paintings" or mixed media
works on canvas. Oddly, the Stanton book contains no mention of these, though its chronology (p. 31) mentions Jane Frank's 1968 solo show at Goucher College
, and the sculptures date from 1967 on, according to Yoseloff's 1975 "Retrospective". Fortunately, we have "A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s" by Julia M. Busch (1974), which contains many images of Frank's sculptures, a number in color.
The sculptures, with their clean lines and surfaces, often in sleek lucite or aluminium
, completely dispense with the earthy, gritty qualities of those "sculptural landscape" canvases, yet there seems to be no clear record of Jane Frank's thinking concerning what must have been a sharp divide in her artistic approach and aims. Possibly this simply reflects the constructivist
or minimalist influence of her teacher, Norman Carlberg
. Indeed, a reviewer of the Watson-Jones book (see References) finds that Frank's sculptures "maintain an abstract cool". Also, perhaps making the sculptures was a less spontaneous process than painting
, placing an emphasis on planning and structure over tactile engagement. Busch (1974) quotes Frank as saying: "I begin [working] from a drawing or cardboard mockup. I give my welding
and aluminum pieces to a machinist
with whom I work quite closely". Even if she worked "quite closely" with the machinist
, this is clearly a very different creative process from solitary work in the studio. Nevertheless, to this writer, a palpable common element between the sculptural paintings and the free-standing sculptures seems to be a fascination with depth and shadows. She seems concerned with what happens to light when it encounters obstacles. Rather than monumental forms, imposing themselves on a space, most of Jane Frank's sculptures seem more like dreamcatchers
: ingenious contraptions designed to seize fugitive visions, so that we can get a better look at them. This is further suggested by many of the titles, such as "April Screen", "Prism
no. 2", and "Shadows of Substance". Julia M. Busch also calls attention to this quality with her remark that "Jane Frank's acrylic
constructions cast brilliant stained-glass shadows through the play of light and color" (p. 26). Busch classifies Frank's pieces as environmental sculpture
- a type pioneered by Louise Nevelson.
There were more solo exhibitions, at venues including New York
's Bodley Gallery
again in 1967, Morgan State University
(1967), Goucher College
(for the second time) in 1968, London
's Alwin Gallery in 1971, the Galerie de l'Université, Paris
(1972), the Philadelphia Art Alliance (1975), and a major retrospective at Towson State College (now Towson University
) in 1975. She also won the Sculpture Prize at the 1983 Maryland Artists Exhibition (source: Watson-Jones).
paintings on canvas
, virtually until the end of her life. Continuing her exploration of the possibilities of multiple-canvas, "apertured" paintings, she began to create her "Aerial
Series" pieces, which came more and more explicitly to suggest landscapes seen from above. Especially noteworthy and striking are the "Night Landings" paintings, such as "Night Landings: Sambura" (1970), with the city grid glinting below like a dark jewel in a deep, nocturnal blue river valley. The 1975 Yoseloff retrospective catalogue listed below is very illuminating on these latter developments, and the color plates (which include images of some of the sculptures) are of higher quality than those in the Stanton book.
Several sources note that Jane Frank also designed rugs
and tapestries; a color photograph showing a detail from one of these textile
works is reproduced in the Ann Avery book listed below.
Jane Frank died on Saturday, May 31, 1986. In some sources, her place of residence is listed as Owings Mills, Maryland
, which is a near suburb of Baltimore
. The 1986 Watson-Jones book's entry on Jane Frank, available at the "Questia" link given below, states her address as "1300 Woods Hole Road Towson, Maryland
21204". Towson
is another near suburb of Baltimore.
There is a strong feeling of the solitarian in many of these pieces before 1970. They are wild and unpeopled. It is ironic that someone trained in advertising
and acting
would create such an emphatically unsocial body of work. Thus Stanton writes that "landscape
" is for Jane Frank a way of conveying ideas which (to Stanton) recall Heidegger's definition of poetry
, which included "the recreation of the experience of standing 'in the presence of the gods and to be exposed to the essential proximity of things' " (Stanton, p. 8). According to the jacket notes of the Stanton book, Pictures on Exhibit magazine commented in a similar vein, saying that these landscapes are "to a compellingly strong degree, poetic evocations of communion with Nature's basic essentials". We are in direct contact with the primal forces, exposed and profoundly alone.
These works are at once sensually compelling and incorporeal — "out-of-body", so to speak. And as Julia M. Busch points out, even the sculptures avoid reference to anything recognizably, bodily human. Stating that Frank's sculptures are "environmental", Busch goes on to define this term in a way that points to their "beyond-human" quality:
"Environmental sculpture
is never made to work at exactly human scale, but is sufficiently larger or smaller than scale to avoid confusion with the human image in the eyes of the viewer." (Busch, p. 27).
Also, the canvases of the 1960s, for all their landscape
-like qualities, usually avoid anything that can be read as a horizon or a sky: we literally don't know which way is up; for as Stanton (p. 12) points out, Jane Frank - starting with "Winter's End" (1958) - avoids horizontal orientation in favor of strong diagonals. Furthermore, in this painting, as in many others of the next decade, scale is undecidable. Stanton, again speaking of "Winter's End", writes:
"One is given no indication of the size of the scene; the way through which winter passes could be either a mountain gorge or a minute water course" (Stanton 1968, p. 12).
Plenty of cues are there that this is some sort of landscape
, and Frank herself avows it:
"The beginning of my efforts to make my own statement, I would trace to my first visit to the Phillips Gallery
.... Landscape
was a natural metaphor
, and so it is still for me today, in my three-dimensional double canvases" (Jane Frank, in a letter to Yoseloff, quoted in Yoseloff, 1975, p. 37).
Summing up the ambiguous position of Jane Frank's work on canvas with respect to both landscape art and pure abstraction, a reviewer for The Art Gallery magazine wrote of her 1971 solo show at London's Alwin Gallery: "Her richly textured canvases evoke a world of crags and forests, rivers and plains, in terms which are entirely non-representational." http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Her+richly+textured+canvases+evoke+a+world+of+crags+and+forests%2C+rivers+and+plains%2C+in+terms+which+are+entirely+non-representational%22&btnG=Search+Books
The catalogue of the 1963 Bodley Gallery show contains a long essay by the artist, and the following three quoted passages capture many of the concerns described here:
(1) On constructing her metaphorical landscape vocabulary: "I prefer to create my own landscapes or vocabulary of shapes and patterns. However, it is rock and mineral substances, their veins and surfaces, projections and infinite hollows, which spark my particular fantasy - also beach wood, well worn with time, that is to be found on the water's edge. Issues of space have always been one of my prime concerns, and these substances seem to relate most closely to this concern. These then are the metaphor..."
(2) On the quality of interiority in her works: "It is also an attempt to penetrate the surface of an object, presenting not only the outside but what occurs within - the essence or core."
(3) On the essential aloneness of her vision: "The artist must create his own space, of his own time and personal vision. The result is not a unique image for the sake of 'newness', but rather for the sake of the artist, who must be concerned with it daily. These days are spent quite alone."
These pieces of the late 1950s and 1960s never lapse into the complaisantly decorative: there is a certain deliberate instability, often even violence, that prevents that. This quality comes through in another remark from Dr. Stanton's book. She's speaking of "Crags and Crevices", but it fits many of the works: "Nothing in the painting is still, for the big forms seem to hover in mid-air, colliding as they fall. There are provocative and startling contrasts between passages of thin, transparent paint and thick impasto
, filled with striatures left by the palette knife
." (Stanton, p. 14).
" is not disorienting in the least: we know where we are; we know we're in a plane, we know the plane is landing, and we even know roughly what time it is: we are looking down, and we see vividly the city named in the title, with the surrounding land and water.
Furthermore, the fact that we see a city down there means that - at least implicitly - there are people in this painting.
Yoseloff, in his 1975 "Retrospective" book, enthuses:
"Perhaps the ultimate achievement in the direction in which Mrs. Frank has been tending is her series of "night landings".... Now, more than ever, the viewer is deeply involved, and he can feel himself carried downward into the landscape
that is the canvas before him" (Thomas Yoseloff, "Jane Frank: A Retrospective Exhibition", 1975: pp. 18–20).
A staunch modernist might scoff that with the "Night Landings" of 1970 Jane Frank's art begins to "go gentle into that good night"
(perhaps even lapsing into "postmodernism
"). But if these more literal aerial landscapes - created in 1970 and after - lose some of the tension that gives the earlier paintings their distinctive power, they nevertheless address, with an intensely intimate delight, a perspective on reality which we must remember was still quite young in 1970, at least as a painterly subject. In "Aerial Perception" (1985), author Margret Dreikausen sees Jane Frank's aerial landscapes as sharing the spirit of the work of artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe
, Susan Crile
, and others, in creating images which "reflect contemporary interest in reality", experienced from a historically new vantage point. Dreikausen insists that this art "does not merely show landscape from the air" but incorporates the "earthbound vision" into "remembered images from both spaces"[p. 63]. Dreikausen also (p. 27) sees Jane Frank's aerial paintings as consisting of two basic types: the "day scenes" (such as "Ledge of Light") and the "night landings" (such as "Night Landing: Sambura"). The day scenes show a fascination with the play of actual shadows and false, painted ones, "inviting the viewer more closely to inspect the textures on the canvas and its 'reality' "(p. 27). In the night landings, by contrast, the city is the focus, nestled in the canvas's aperture, like a precious jewel in a dark velvet box, with its "enticing twinkling lights", suggesting "the anticipation of the unknown, mysterious city.... The use of beads and glitter, partially covered with paint, conveys a sense of personal landscape" (p27).
[N.B.: Yoseloff, 1975, gives the reverse of Dreikausen's dates for these two works: that is, he gives 1970 as the date for "Night Landing: Sambura" (not 1974) and 1974 as the date for "Ledge of Light" (not 1970). Yoseloff's dates seem to comport better with other information, and so it seems probable that Dreikausen somehow got them reversed.]
As an overview of Jane Frank's work, this oversimplifies - even to the point of falsification; but it must be remembered that Frank did not exhibit in Paris
until 1972. The French, ainsi dire, got only a distant, aerial view of Jane Frank's oeuvre. One really ought to come in for a closer look; for despite the relatively extroverted character of these later aerial paintings, the continued use of multiple canvases with apertures gives even these more realistic landscapes an unsettling quality of psychic ingazing: thus, her obituary in the Baltimore Sun (Monday, June 2, 1986) reminds us that she liked to call her works "inscapes
". As we peer over crags into the abyss, we are - in the words of Dr. Stanton - "exposed to the essential proximity of things."
, (Towson, Maryland
, Branch), "Baltimore County Women, 1930-1975", (Baltimore
: The Sunpapers, 1976) [Please note: the 1981 Ann Avery book listed below mentions this book and credits George Rogers with the editorship, either of the book or perhaps only of the Jane Frank article - it is not clear. The book is a collection of profiles of forty Baltimore County women "who distinguished themselves" in diverse fields (including opera singer Rosa Ponselle
and golfer Carol Mann
), compiled as part of a project celebrating the 1976 United States Bicentennial
. The full-page Jane Frank article includes a photo of the artist in her studio.] OCLC
7441013
2. Avery, Ann (ed.), "American Artists of Renown, 1981-1982" [includes one color plate image of a Jane Frank work, along with a bio] (Wilson Publishing Co.: Gilmer, Texas
, 1981) ISSN 0276-5691; OCLC
7391331
3. Benezit, E. (ed.), "Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, desinateurs, et graveurs de tous les temps et tous les pays" ["Critical and Documentary Dictionary of Painters, Sculptors, Draftsmen, and Engravers of All Times and All Countries"], (Gründ, Paris
, 1999) [Please note: in 2006, an English language edition of the Benezit Dictionary of Artists
became available for the first time.] ISBN 2-7000-0149-4 [see Benezit Dictionary of Artists
]
4. Busch, Julia M., "A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s" [contains three color and two b&w images of Jane Frank's sculptures, as well as some discussion of the work and several quotations from the artist] (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London
, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
5. Chiarmonte, Paula, "Women Artists in the United States: a Selective Bibliography and Resource Guide on the Fine and Decorative Arts" (G. K. Hall & Co., Boston
, 1990) [entry on Jane Frank is on page 606]. ISBN 0-8161-8917-X
6. Creps, Bob ; and Howard Creps; Biographical encyclopedia of American painters, sculptors & engravers of the U.S. : Colonial to 2002 (Land O'Lakes
, Florida
: Dealer's Choice Books, 2002) [in two volumes: Jane Frank bio on p. 475 of first volume] ISBN 0-9668526-1-3
7. Davenport, Ray, "Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide, Gold Edition" (Ventura, California
, 2005) ISSN 1540-1553; OCLC
18196910
8. Dreikausen, Margret, "Aerial Perception: The Earth as Seen from Aircraft and Spacecraft and Its Influence on Contemporary Art" (Associated University Presses: Cranbury, NJ; London
, England
; Mississauga, Ontario
: 1985) [includes color plate images of two of Jane Frank's aerial paintings]. ISBN 0-87982-040-3
9. Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson (Ed.), "The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005" (Scottsdale, Arizona
, 2005) [Please note: Worldcat lists Roger Dunbier as the editor of this work, whereas the Askart.com website - which publishes the book - names Lonnie Pierson Dunbier (presumably married to Mr. Dunbier) as editor.] OCLC
46913212
10. Frank, Jane. Jane Frank (pub. New York, N.Y. : Bodley Gallery, 1963) [catalogue for solo exhibition, with dates given as Oct. 22 - Nov. 9]. OCLC
80892120 [Also available in MICA library vertical file; see 'External links' for access help. Additionally, Worldcat has another listing for a book, in the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
, by "Jane Frank" and entitled Jane Frank; there is no mention of the Bodley Gallery, but under "Details," Worldcat has "Contents: Sculptural paintings : Jane Frank". Presumably this is the same 1963 catalogue; or perhaps it is the catalogue of Jane Frank's 1967 show at the Bodley. The OCLC
here is 83643093.
11. Frank, Jane; Arthur Mayer; Alwin Gallery. The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank [catalogue for exhibition at Alwin Gallery, 56 Brook Street, London
, Jan. 5-29, 1971.] Here is a link to the catalogue record of the copy at the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum
, London
: http://catalogue.nal.vam.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=119A595V2024S.29014&profile=nal&uri=link=3100035~!1688818~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=subtab114&menu=search&ri=4&source=~!horizon&term=The+sculptural+landscape+of+Jane+Frank.&index=ALLTITL. The book is also available in the MICA library vertical file on Jane Frank; see 'External links' for access help. This catalogue (confusingly taking the same title as the Stanton book) amounts nearly to a full monograph on the artist, with many images of the artist and the work, lists of exhibitions and other career summary material, and an extensive critical essay by Arthur Mayer. The Victoria and Albert Museum library description reads: "Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Alwin Gallery, London, 5 Jan. - 29 Jan. 1971. Text By Arthur Mayer."
12. Frank, Jane, "Monica Mink" (Vanguard Press, New York
, 1948) [children's book authored and illustrated by Jane Frank] OCLC
1687962
13. International Gallery. Jane Frank: sculptural paintings (Baltimore
: International Gallery, 1965) [solo exhibition catalogue] OCLC
81811826 (Also available in the "Jane Frank" vertical file at the MICA library)
14. Jacques Cattell Press, ed., "Who's Who in American Art", 1980 (New York
: R.R. Bowker, 1980) [Jane frank entry pp. 240–241] ISBN 0-8352-1258-0
15. Jacques Cattell Press, ed., "Who's Who in American Art", 1984 (New York
; London
: R.R. Bowker, 1984) [Jane frank entry p. 303] ISBN 0-8352-1878-3
16. Meissner, Gunter, "Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon: Die Bildenen Kuntsler aller Zeiten und Volker" ["Complete Dictionary of Artists of all Times and All Peoples"] (Pub. Saur: Munich
, Leipzig
, 2005) [34-line Jane Frank entry on page 46, vol. 44] ISBN 3-598-22740-X
17. Opitz, Glenn B., ed., "Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers" (Poughkeepsie, NY : Apollo, 1983) ISBN 0-938290-02-9
18. Opitz, Glenn B., ed., "Dictionary of American Sculptors" (Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1984) ISBN 0-938290-03-7
19. Stanton, Phoebe B., "The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank" [highly informative and thorough monograph including b&w and color plates, 120pp. This is the most important and widely available published source on Jane Frank.] (A.S. Barnes: South Brunswick, New Jersey, and New York
, 1968) ISBN 1-125-32317-5 [A second edition of this book was published in July 1969 (Yoseloff: London
, ISBN 0-498-06974-5; also ISBN 978-0498069741). At 144 pages, this is considerably longer than the 1968 edition; copies of the 1969 version appear to be quite rare.] (Google Book Search link to the 1969 version: http://books.google.com/books?id=z_48AAAACAAJ&dq=%22sculptural+landscape+of+jane+frank%22&lr=)
20. Watson-Jones, Virginia, "Contemporary American Women Sculptors" [this book is the source for the Questia external link provided below; the book's summary of Jane Frank's career emphasizes (naturally) her sculptures, properly speaking - as opposed to the paintings and mixed-media works on canvas.] [includes a b&w photo of sculpture ('Perpendicular Landscape')] (Oryx Press: Phoenix
, 1986) ISBN 0-89774-139-0
21. Yoseloff, Thomas, "The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel" [children's book with block print illustrations by Jane Frank] (New York
: Thomas Yoseloff 1957) [Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 57-6892] OCLC
24242276
22. Yoseloff, Thomas, "Jane Frank: A Retrospective Exhibition" [This exhibition catalogue amounts to another full monograph on the artist, with very high quality color and b&w plates, extensive textual discussion and quotation of the artist, and much specific and detailed information on Jane Frank's life, career, and individual artworks: 51 pp.] (A. S. Barnes: New York
and London
, 1975) OCLC
2651512
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
and Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
and is known as a painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculptor, mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
artist, and textile artist. Her landscape-like, mixed-media abstract paintings are included in some important public collections, including those of the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
, the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
.
Work
A pupil of Hans HofmannHans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
, Jane Frank can in much of her work be categorized stylistically as an abstract expressionist, but one who draws primary inspiration from the natural world, particularly landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
— landscape "as metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
", she once explained. Her later painting refers more explicitly to aerial landscapes, while her sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
tends toward minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
. Chronologically and stylistically, Jane Frank's work in totality straddles both the modern
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
and the contemporary
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
(even postmodern) periods. She referred to her works generally as "inscapes
Inscape (visual art)
Inscape, in visual art, is a term especially associated with certain works of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the visual arts. Though the term inscape has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the...
".
Jane Frank's paintings and mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
works on canvas are in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
("Amber Ambience", 1964), the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
("Frazer's Hog Cay #18", 1968; image link here), the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
("Winter's End", 1958), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is an art museum located on the northwest corner of the Arts Quad on the main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It is most well known for its distinctive concrete facade, its collection which includes two windows from Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
("Red Painting", 1966) http://insight-test.library.cornell.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/CORNELL~1~1~7202~80150030:Red-Painting?qvq=w4s:/when/20th+century/1966/;lc:CORNELL~3~1,CORNELL~9~1,CORNELL~4~1,MOAC~100~1,CORNELL~13~1,CORNELL~5~1,CORNELL~1~1,CORNELL-BRD~16~1,FBC~100~1,Stanford~6~1,CORNELL~10~1,CORNELL~15~1,CORNELL~14~1,CUDCIA~1~1,HFJ1~1~1,CORNELL-VIC~3~3,PRATTPRT~12~12,JCB~1~1,PRATTPRT~13~13,JCBBOOKS~1~1,BardBar~1~1,RUMSEY~8~1,ADW-CORNELL~3~1,HOOVER~1~1,PRATTPRT~9~9,cumap~2~2,CORNELL~2~1,PRATTPRT~21~21,CORNELL-AER~2~2,RUMSEY~9~1,ESTATE~2~1,CORNELL-Asia~2~2,LTUHSS~20~20,ChineseArt-ENG~1~1&mi=10&trs=38],the Arkansas Arts Center
Arkansas Arts Center
One of the leading cultural institutions in the state, the Arkansas Arts Center is located on the corner of 9th and Commerce streets in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The Arkansas Arts Center was founded in 1960, but the idea began in 1914, when the Fine Arts Club of Arkansas formed...
(AAC: image here) in Little Rock ("Web Of Rock", 1960), and the Evansville Museum
Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science
The Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science is a general-interest museum located on the Ohio riverfront in downtown Evansville, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1904, it is one of Southern Indiana's most established and significant cultural institutions, with comprehensive collections in...
("Quarry III", 1963). Her works are in many other public, academic, corporate, and private collections.
Training in commercial art
Park School of Baltimore
The Park School of Baltimore is a private, co-educational K-12 school located in Brooklandville, Maryland, USA, just north of the city of Baltimore. The campus lies to the south of Old Court Road in Baltimore County...
and received her initial artistic training at the Maryland Institute of Arts and Sciences (now known as MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...
), earning in 1935 a diploma in commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
and fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
[Watson-Jones]. She then acquired further training in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at what is now the Parsons School of Design (then called the New York School of Fine and Applied Art), from which she graduated in 1939 [Stanton]. In New York she also studied at the New Theatre School. Her schooling complete, she began working in advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
design and acting in summer stock theater. From the sources, it is unclear whether she worked in these fields while still in New York, or only after returning to Baltimore. We do know, however, that she began painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
seriously in 1940.
Becoming a painter
In a letter to Thomas Yoseloff, she wrote (quoted in Yoseloff's Retrospective, 1975, p. 34) that "prior to 1940 my background had been entirely in commercial artCommercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
" and that when she began painting seriously, she had to "put behind me everything I had so carefully learned in the schools" (p. 34). She began a study of the history of painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and "went through a progression of spatial conceptions" (p. 35) from cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
through the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, then concentrating on Cezanne, Picasso, and De Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
. "I was also much concerned with texture
Texture (painting)
Texture in painting is the look and feel of the canvas. It is based on the paint, and its application, or the addition of materials such as ribbon, metal, wood, lace, leather and sand. The concept of 'painterliness' also has bearing on texture. The texture stimulates two different senses; sight...
, and heavy paint", she adds (p. 35).
Marriage and family - and children's books
After returning to BaltimoreBaltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, she married Herman Benjamin Frank in 1941. According to the biography in "Baltimore County Women, 1930-1975" listed below, Jane had previously been working as a commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
ist "for department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s and advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
agencies", but she "gave up her career in commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
for marriage and a family" (p. 16). After marrying, she signed her worked consistently as "Jane Frank", apparently never including a maiden name or middle initial. Her husband, a builder
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
, constructed their home, including a studio
Studio
A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...
for his wife. With the initial demands of a new marriage and family presumably beginning to relax a bit, Jane Frank returned seriously to painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
in 1947 (according to Stanton, p. 9).
In the following decade, while raising a family and rapidly developing as a serious painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, the young mother also illustrated three children's books. Monica Mink (1948) featured, along with Jane Frank's illustrations, a whimsical text by the artist herself, entirely in verse, relating a tale in which (according to the review published by the National Council of Teachers of English
National Council of Teachers of English
The National Council of Teachers of English is an American professional organization dedicated to "improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education...
) "In rhyme the obstreperous Monica Mink 'who wouldn't listen and didn't think' is finally taught that 'all Mother Minks know best'." http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22who+wouldn%27t+listen+and+didn%27t+think%22&btnG=Search+Books. Thomas Yoseloff's The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...
(1957, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
), featured Jane Frank's block prints, which already show a penchant for collage-like textural juxtapositions and strong diagonal composition. Jane Frank's 1986 obituary in the Baltimore Sun mentions that she published a third children's book, entitled Eadie the Pink Elephant, with both text and pictures by the artist, and this is confirmed in an excerpt from Publishers Weekly available online http://books.google.com/books?q=%22eadie+the+pink+elephant%22&btnG=Search+Books.
Health catastrophes and recovery
Professor Phoebe B. Stanton of Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
(see below) mentions that twice in the 20 years after 1947, Jane Frank suffered from illnesses which "interrupted the work for long periods". The first of these catastrophes was a serious car accident in 1952, requiring multiple major surgeries and extensive convalescence, and the second was a "serious and potentially life-threatening illness" soon after her 1958 solo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
. The latter illness was so severe, according to Stanton, that it interrupted Jane Frank's painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
work for about two years.
Encountering Hans Hofmann, and discovering a "sculptural landscape"
Health problems notwithstanding, the latter 1950s proved decisively fruitful for Jane Frank as a serious artist. Having fairly well recovered from her injuries in the traumatic 1952 accident, she studied for a period in 1956 with the great abstract expressionist painter Hans HofmannHans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
in Provincetown, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and this mentoring gave her a jolt of inspiration and encouragement. She soon had solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
(1958), the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
(1962), the Bodley Gallery
Bodley Gallery
The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...
in New York (1963) and Goucher College
Goucher College
Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...
(1963), among others.
She also, in 1962 (1961 according to some sources), won a Rinehart
William Henry Rinehart
William Henry Rinehart was a noted American sculptor. He is considered "the last important American sculptor to work in the classical style."-Biography:...
Fellowship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
, enabling her to study with Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
http://www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000160.html at the Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...
. This might seem a sudden and late detour away from painterly pursuits, but it is really a logical step: the canvases in the 1962 Corcoran show, such as "Crags and Crevices" and "Rockscape II" http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/KEN20080208_5437/862.jpghttp://image.artfact.com/housePhotos/sloankenyon/03/164703/H1039-L06351266.jpg?h=383D6C361CBAC14AD40BEE07C6BA3057, already feature passages that are sculpturally "built up" with thick mounds of gesso
Gesso
Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these...
(or "spackle", as Stanton tends to call it).
The single best source on Jane Frank is The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank (1968), by Phoebe B. Stanton (the art history professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
who died in 2003). Stanton's text provides a guide to Jane Frank's life and work, and there is a helpful and liberal use of quotations from the artist herself, enabling the reader to understand how Frank's thinking evolved, especially from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. The book (out of print but still in many public and university art libraries) also contains a wealth of biographical information and many large plate reproductions of the artist's works, some in color. There are also photographs of the artist.
Jane Frank's preoccupation with space was evident even before her paintings became overtly "sculptural" in their use of mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
. Of the paintings in the 1962 Corcoran Gallery show, she tells Phoebe Stanton: "I was trying to pit mass against void and make it look as though there were passages that went way back - that's why 'crevice' is in so many of the titles" (Stanton, p. 15). Indeed, "Crags and Crevices" (70"x50", oil and spackle on canvas), completed in 1961, dominated the show.
Combining diverse materials and techniques
Soon after the month-long Corcoran Gallery solo exhibition, Jane Frank began to apply not just spackle but a variety of other materials - sea-weathered or broken glass, charred driftwoodDriftwood
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea or river by the action of winds, tides, waves or man. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack....
, pebbles, what appears to be crushed graphite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
or silica, and even glued-on patches of separately painted and encrusted canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
(canvas collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
) - to her jagged, abstract expressionist paintings. "I wanted work that was painterly
Painterly
Painterliness is a translation of the German term , a word popularized by Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin in order to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to characterize works of art...
but with an actual three-dimensional space", she later wrote (Yoseloff 1975, pp. 37–39). The oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
technique itself varies widely, from heavy daubs and stabs of the palette knife
Palette knife
A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for mixing paint colors, paste, etc., or for marbling, decorative endpapers, etc...
to watery
Wash (painting)
thumb|Example of a wash drawing by [[R. G. Skerrett]].A wash is a painting technique in which a paint brush that is very wet with solvent and holds a small paint load is applied to a wet or dry support such as paper or primed or raw canvas. The result is a smooth and uniform area that ideally lacks...
or inky effects. Occasionally a very thick impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
will be peppered with minute pits, so that it looks a bit like sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
eroded by wind-blown dirt. There are even crinkly, web-like areas which somewhat resemble (while clearly not being) batique or tie-dye
Tie-dye
Tie-dye is a process of resist dyeing textiles or clothing which is made from knit or woven fabric, usually cotton; typically using bright colors. It is a modern version of traditional dyeing methods used in many cultures throughout the world. "Tie-dye" can also describe the resulting pattern or an...
. Sometimes the paint appears smeared with mud or mixed with sand, though it's hard to be sure. The 1963 work pictured at the top of this page is a good example, as is "Plum Point" (1964). Jane Frank's first solo show at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Bodley Gallery
Bodley Gallery
The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...
(1963), as well as her 1965 solo show at Baltimore's International Gallery, featured many of these radically dense and variegated mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
paintings.
"Apertured", multiple-canvas paintings
Later she began making irregular holes in the canvases ("apertures", as she called them: the earliest example is "Winter Windows", 1966–1967), disclosing deeper layers of painted canvasCanvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
underneath (so-called "double canvases" - and sometimes triple canvases), with painted-on "false shadows", etc. - increasingly invoking the third dimension, creating tactile, sculptural effects while remaining within the convention of the framed, rectangular oil painting. The apertures also suggest a view into some sort of psychological interior, as though the second canvas - seen only partially, through the hole in the forward canvas - were some half-concealed secret, perhaps even another whole painting that we will never see.
Stanton (p. 24) also notes that Jane Frank worked out a method - unspecified - of stiffening the apertures' often jagged edges so that they held their shape and flatness. These creations are a type of "shaped canvas
Shaped canvas
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
", though obviously very different from the shaped canvases of Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
and others more commonly associated with this term.
In much of her output before the late 1960s, Frank seems less interested in color than in tonality and texture, often employing the gray scale
Grayscale
In photography and computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample, that is, it carries only intensity information...
to create a sense of depth or of motion from light to dark, this frequently moving in a diagonal (as in "Winter's End", 1958), and otherwise employing one basic hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
(as with the earthy reds in "Plum Point", 1964). However, the later, "windowed" paintings show a sharper interest in vivid color relationships: indeed, Yoseloff (p. 20) notes that with the later paintings "she has gone to bolder colors". This is especially true, as he notes, in the "aerial" paintings, of which an early and monumental example is "Aerial View no. 1" (1968, 60 inches by 84 inches, collection of the Turner Auditorium complex at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine , located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., is the academic medical teaching and research arm of Johns Hopkins University. Hopkins has consistently been the nation's number one medical school in the amount of competitive research grants awarded by the National...
, Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
). This was one of the artist's favorites, according to Baltimore County Women [see below].
Standing apart
While these highly complex and laborious constructions (she often called them "three-dimensional paintings") moved her well beyond the vocabulary of the improvisatory, so-called "action paintingAction painting
Action painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
" usually associated with American abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, they also had virtually nothing to do with the pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
and minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
which were then the rage of the 1960s New York art scene. Furthermore, they bore little resemblance to the serene "color field
Color Field
Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
" paintings of Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
, or Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
. Whether brooding or exuberant, the (as it were) geologically deposited, erupted, eroded, and gouged canvases of Jane Frank stand apart from all else. Perhaps this style could be called "geomorphic abstraction" - though apparently no such term can be found as a stylistic category in art history books.
This standoffish aesthetic position, her chosen departure from the career-making New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
scene, and the fact that her overall output was not very large (by some standards at least), were factors that limited her career and her contemporary impact on the course of American art
American Art
American Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...
. Yet perhaps, as time goes on, present-day art lovers who get to know these pieces will agree with Professor Stanton that they are powerful and beautiful creations, worthy of contemplation and admiration on their intrinsic merits - regardless of what was supposedly fashionable in 1960-something:
| – Dr. Phoebe Stanton [The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank, p. 29] |
Sculpture: depths and shadows, reflections and refractions
In the late 1960s, Jane Frank turned her energies toward the creation of free-standing sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, i.e., sculptures properly speaking, as opposed to "sculptural paintings" or mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
works on canvas. Oddly, the Stanton book contains no mention of these, though its chronology (p. 31) mentions Jane Frank's 1968 solo show at Goucher College
Goucher College
Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...
, and the sculptures date from 1967 on, according to Yoseloff's 1975 "Retrospective". Fortunately, we have "A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s" by Julia M. Busch (1974), which contains many images of Frank's sculptures, a number in color.
The sculptures, with their clean lines and surfaces, often in sleek lucite or aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
, completely dispense with the earthy, gritty qualities of those "sculptural landscape" canvases, yet there seems to be no clear record of Jane Frank's thinking concerning what must have been a sharp divide in her artistic approach and aims. Possibly this simply reflects the constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
or minimalist influence of her teacher, Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg
Norman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
. Indeed, a reviewer of the Watson-Jones book (see References) finds that Frank's sculptures "maintain an abstract cool". Also, perhaps making the sculptures was a less spontaneous process than painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, placing an emphasis on planning and structure over tactile engagement. Busch (1974) quotes Frank as saying: "I begin [working] from a drawing or cardboard mockup. I give my welding
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
and aluminum pieces to a machinist
Machinist
A machinist is a person who uses machine tools to make or modify parts, primarily metal parts, a process known as machining. This is accomplished by using machine tools to cut away excess material much as a woodcarver cuts away excess wood to produce his work. In addition to metal, the parts may...
with whom I work quite closely". Even if she worked "quite closely" with the machinist
Machinist
A machinist is a person who uses machine tools to make or modify parts, primarily metal parts, a process known as machining. This is accomplished by using machine tools to cut away excess material much as a woodcarver cuts away excess wood to produce his work. In addition to metal, the parts may...
, this is clearly a very different creative process from solitary work in the studio. Nevertheless, to this writer, a palpable common element between the sculptural paintings and the free-standing sculptures seems to be a fascination with depth and shadows. She seems concerned with what happens to light when it encounters obstacles. Rather than monumental forms, imposing themselves on a space, most of Jane Frank's sculptures seem more like dreamcatchers
Dreamcatcher (Native American)
In Ojibwe culture, a dreamcatcher is a handmade object based on a willow hoop, on which is woven a loose net or web...
: ingenious contraptions designed to seize fugitive visions, so that we can get a better look at them. This is further suggested by many of the titles, such as "April Screen", "Prism
Prism (optics)
In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. The exact angles between the surfaces depend on the application. The traditional geometrical shape is that of a triangular prism with a triangular base and rectangular sides, and in colloquial use...
no. 2", and "Shadows of Substance". Julia M. Busch also calls attention to this quality with her remark that "Jane Frank's acrylic
Acrylic glass
Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...
constructions cast brilliant stained-glass shadows through the play of light and color" (p. 26). Busch classifies Frank's pieces as environmental sculpture
Environmental sculpture
The term environmental sculpture is variously defined. A development of the art of the 20th century, environmental sculpture usually creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer...
- a type pioneered by Louise Nevelson.
There were more solo exhibitions, at venues including New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Bodley Gallery
Bodley Gallery
The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...
again in 1967, Morgan State University
Morgan State University
Morgan State University, formerly Centenary Biblical Institute , Morgan College and Morgan State College , is a historically black college in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Morgan is Maryland's designated public urban university and the largest HBCU in the state of Maryland...
(1967), Goucher College
Goucher College
Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...
(for the second time) in 1968, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Alwin Gallery in 1971, the Galerie de l'Université, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1972), the Philadelphia Art Alliance (1975), and a major retrospective at Towson State College (now Towson University
Towson University
Towson University, often referred to as TU or simply Towson for short, is a public university located in Towson in Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S...
) in 1975. She also won the Sculpture Prize at the 1983 Maryland Artists Exhibition (source: Watson-Jones).
Aerial landscape paintings
Even after 1967, when Jane Frank began making sculptures, grappling with new media such as plastics and metals, she maintained her ever-evolving production of mixed mediaMixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
paintings on canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
, virtually until the end of her life. Continuing her exploration of the possibilities of multiple-canvas, "apertured" paintings, she began to create her "Aerial
Aerial landscape art
Aerial landscape art includes paintings and other visual arts which depict or evoke the appearance of a landscape from a perspective above it—usually from a considerable distance—as it might be viewed from an aircraft or spacecraft. Sometimes the art is based not on direct observation but on aerial...
Series" pieces, which came more and more explicitly to suggest landscapes seen from above. Especially noteworthy and striking are the "Night Landings" paintings, such as "Night Landings: Sambura" (1970), with the city grid glinting below like a dark jewel in a deep, nocturnal blue river valley. The 1975 Yoseloff retrospective catalogue listed below is very illuminating on these latter developments, and the color plates (which include images of some of the sculptures) are of higher quality than those in the Stanton book.
Several sources note that Jane Frank also designed rugs
Carpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or a manmade fibre such as polypropylene,nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their...
and tapestries; a color photograph showing a detail from one of these textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
works is reproduced in the Ann Avery book listed below.
Jane Frank died on Saturday, May 31, 1986. In some sources, her place of residence is listed as Owings Mills, Maryland
Owings Mills, Maryland
Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. The population was 20,193 at the 2000 census. Owings Mills is home to the northern terminus for the Baltimore Metro Subway and to Owings Mills Mall....
, which is a near suburb of Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. The 1986 Watson-Jones book's entry on Jane Frank, available at the "Questia" link given below, states her address as "1300 Woods Hole Road Towson, Maryland
Towson, Maryland
Towson is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 at the 2010 census...
21204". Towson
Towson
-Places:In the United States:*Towson, Maryland, an unincorporated community in Maryland**Towson Center, an arena in Towson, Maryland**Towson Town Center, a shopping mall in Towson, Maryland*Fort Towson, Oklahoma, a community in Oklahoma...
is another near suburb of Baltimore.
"Standing in the presence of the gods"
The overall characterization of Jane Frank's art is ultimately a subjective matter, but there is plenty of solid material on which to base a substantive discussion.There is a strong feeling of the solitarian in many of these pieces before 1970. They are wild and unpeopled. It is ironic that someone trained in advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
and acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
would create such an emphatically unsocial body of work. Thus Stanton writes that "landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
" is for Jane Frank a way of conveying ideas which (to Stanton) recall Heidegger's definition of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, which included "the recreation of the experience of standing 'in the presence of the gods and to be exposed to the essential proximity of things' " (Stanton, p. 8). According to the jacket notes of the Stanton book, Pictures on Exhibit magazine commented in a similar vein, saying that these landscapes are "to a compellingly strong degree, poetic evocations of communion with Nature's basic essentials". We are in direct contact with the primal forces, exposed and profoundly alone.
These works are at once sensually compelling and incorporeal — "out-of-body", so to speak. And as Julia M. Busch points out, even the sculptures avoid reference to anything recognizably, bodily human. Stating that Frank's sculptures are "environmental", Busch goes on to define this term in a way that points to their "beyond-human" quality:
"Environmental sculpture
Environmental sculpture
The term environmental sculpture is variously defined. A development of the art of the 20th century, environmental sculpture usually creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer...
is never made to work at exactly human scale, but is sufficiently larger or smaller than scale to avoid confusion with the human image in the eyes of the viewer." (Busch, p. 27).
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
-like qualities, usually avoid anything that can be read as a horizon or a sky: we literally don't know which way is up; for as Stanton (p. 12) points out, Jane Frank - starting with "Winter's End" (1958) - avoids horizontal orientation in favor of strong diagonals. Furthermore, in this painting, as in many others of the next decade, scale is undecidable. Stanton, again speaking of "Winter's End", writes:
"One is given no indication of the size of the scene; the way through which winter passes could be either a mountain gorge or a minute water course" (Stanton 1968, p. 12).
Plenty of cues are there that this is some sort of landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
, and Frank herself avows it:
"The beginning of my efforts to make my own statement, I would trace to my first visit to the Phillips Gallery
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...
.... Landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
was a natural metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
, and so it is still for me today, in my three-dimensional double canvases" (Jane Frank, in a letter to Yoseloff, quoted in Yoseloff, 1975, p. 37).
Summing up the ambiguous position of Jane Frank's work on canvas with respect to both landscape art and pure abstraction, a reviewer for The Art Gallery magazine wrote of her 1971 solo show at London's Alwin Gallery: "Her richly textured canvases evoke a world of crags and forests, rivers and plains, in terms which are entirely non-representational." http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Her+richly+textured+canvases+evoke+a+world+of+crags+and+forests%2C+rivers+and+plains%2C+in+terms+which+are+entirely+non-representational%22&btnG=Search+Books
The catalogue of the 1963 Bodley Gallery show contains a long essay by the artist, and the following three quoted passages capture many of the concerns described here:
(1) On constructing her metaphorical landscape vocabulary: "I prefer to create my own landscapes or vocabulary of shapes and patterns. However, it is rock and mineral substances, their veins and surfaces, projections and infinite hollows, which spark my particular fantasy - also beach wood, well worn with time, that is to be found on the water's edge. Issues of space have always been one of my prime concerns, and these substances seem to relate most closely to this concern. These then are the metaphor..."
(2) On the quality of interiority in her works: "It is also an attempt to penetrate the surface of an object, presenting not only the outside but what occurs within - the essence or core."
(3) On the essential aloneness of her vision: "The artist must create his own space, of his own time and personal vision. The result is not a unique image for the sake of 'newness', but rather for the sake of the artist, who must be concerned with it daily. These days are spent quite alone."
These pieces of the late 1950s and 1960s never lapse into the complaisantly decorative: there is a certain deliberate instability, often even violence, that prevents that. This quality comes through in another remark from Dr. Stanton's book. She's speaking of "Crags and Crevices", but it fits many of the works: "Nothing in the painting is still, for the big forms seem to hover in mid-air, colliding as they fall. There are provocative and startling contrasts between passages of thin, transparent paint and thick impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
, filled with striatures left by the palette knife
Palette knife
A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for mixing paint colors, paste, etc., or for marbling, decorative endpapers, etc...
." (Stanton, p. 14).
Delighting in the bird's-eye view
Even 1968's "Aerial View No. 1", despite the spatial hint of the title, is far from literal. Certain features of structure and color render a literal interpretation of this image as an aerial landscape difficult or even impossible. The attempt at interpretation is both invited and repulsed. But by about 1970, with the "Night Landings" paintings, there was a definite shift away from the previous decade's stubbornly refractive attitude. The "Night Landings" offer a much more definite sense of scale and viewpoint, especially with the aid of the titles. "Night Landings: NairobiNairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
" is not disorienting in the least: we know where we are; we know we're in a plane, we know the plane is landing, and we even know roughly what time it is: we are looking down, and we see vividly the city named in the title, with the surrounding land and water.
Furthermore, the fact that we see a city down there means that - at least implicitly - there are people in this painting.
Yoseloff, in his 1975 "Retrospective" book, enthuses:
"Perhaps the ultimate achievement in the direction in which Mrs. Frank has been tending is her series of "night landings".... Now, more than ever, the viewer is deeply involved, and he can feel himself carried downward into the landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
that is the canvas before him" (Thomas Yoseloff, "Jane Frank: A Retrospective Exhibition", 1975: pp. 18–20).
A staunch modernist might scoff that with the "Night Landings" of 1970 Jane Frank's art begins to "go gentle into that good night"
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night, a villanelle, is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas . Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it also appeared as part of the collection "In Country Sleep." Written for his dying father, it is one of...
(perhaps even lapsing into "postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
"). But if these more literal aerial landscapes - created in 1970 and after - lose some of the tension that gives the earlier paintings their distinctive power, they nevertheless address, with an intensely intimate delight, a perspective on reality which we must remember was still quite young in 1970, at least as a painterly subject. In "Aerial Perception" (1985), author Margret Dreikausen sees Jane Frank's aerial landscapes as sharing the spirit of the work of artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, Susan Crile
Susan Crile
Susan Crile is an artist, primarily a painter and printmaker. She has had over 50 solo exhibitions, and her work is in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Phillips Collection, and...
, and others, in creating images which "reflect contemporary interest in reality", experienced from a historically new vantage point. Dreikausen insists that this art "does not merely show landscape from the air" but incorporates the "earthbound vision" into "remembered images from both spaces"[p. 63]. Dreikausen also (p. 27) sees Jane Frank's aerial paintings as consisting of two basic types: the "day scenes" (such as "Ledge of Light") and the "night landings" (such as "Night Landing: Sambura"). The day scenes show a fascination with the play of actual shadows and false, painted ones, "inviting the viewer more closely to inspect the textures on the canvas and its 'reality' "(p. 27). In the night landings, by contrast, the city is the focus, nestled in the canvas's aperture, like a precious jewel in a dark velvet box, with its "enticing twinkling lights", suggesting "the anticipation of the unknown, mysterious city.... The use of beads and glitter, partially covered with paint, conveys a sense of personal landscape" (p27).
[N.B.: Yoseloff, 1975, gives the reverse of Dreikausen's dates for these two works: that is, he gives 1970 as the date for "Night Landing: Sambura" (not 1974) and 1974 as the date for "Ledge of Light" (not 1970). Yoseloff's dates seem to comport better with other information, and so it seems probable that Dreikausen somehow got them reversed.]
Art of the lonely inscape
The 1999 Benezit book's entry on Jane Frank takes it as a given that her works on canvas may be summarized as semi-abstract aerial views: "Sa peinture, abstraite, fait cependant reference a un paysagisme aerien, comme vu d'avion." ["Her paintings, though abstract, nevertheless make reference to aerial landscapes, as viewed from an airplane."]As an overview of Jane Frank's work, this oversimplifies - even to the point of falsification; but it must be remembered that Frank did not exhibit in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
until 1972. The French, ainsi dire, got only a distant, aerial view of Jane Frank's oeuvre. One really ought to come in for a closer look; for despite the relatively extroverted character of these later aerial paintings, the continued use of multiple canvases with apertures gives even these more realistic landscapes an unsettling quality of psychic ingazing: thus, her obituary in the Baltimore Sun (Monday, June 2, 1986) reminds us that she liked to call her works "inscapes
Inscape (visual art)
Inscape, in visual art, is a term especially associated with certain works of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the visual arts. Though the term inscape has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the...
". As we peer over crags into the abyss, we are - in the words of Dr. Stanton - "exposed to the essential proximity of things."
See also
- Abstract expressionismAbstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
- Aerial landscape artAerial landscape artAerial landscape art includes paintings and other visual arts which depict or evoke the appearance of a landscape from a perspective above it—usually from a considerable distance—as it might be viewed from an aircraft or spacecraft. Sometimes the art is based not on direct observation but on aerial...
- Bodley GalleryBodley GalleryThe Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...
- Environmental sculptureEnvironmental sculptureThe term environmental sculpture is variously defined. A development of the art of the 20th century, environmental sculpture usually creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer...
- Hans HofmannHans HofmannHans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
- Inscape (visual art)Inscape (visual art)Inscape, in visual art, is a term especially associated with certain works of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the visual arts. Though the term inscape has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the...
- Shaped canvasShaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
- Landscape artLandscape artLandscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
- Maryland Institute College of ArtMaryland Institute College of ArtMaryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...
- MinimalismMinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
- Mixed mediaMixed mediaMixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
- Norman CarlbergNorman CarlbergNorman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
- Park School of BaltimorePark School of BaltimoreThe Park School of Baltimore is a private, co-educational K-12 school located in Brooklandville, Maryland, USA, just north of the city of Baltimore. The campus lies to the south of Old Court Road in Baltimore County...
- Parsons The New School for DesignParsons The New School for DesignParsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
- Women artistsWomen artistsWomen artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
Books
1. American Association of University WomenAmerican Association of University Women
The American Association of University Women advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. It was founded in 1882 by Ellen Swallow Richards and Marion Talbot...
, (Towson, Maryland
Towson, Maryland
Towson is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 at the 2010 census...
, Branch), "Baltimore County Women, 1930-1975", (Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
: The Sunpapers, 1976) [Please note: the 1981 Ann Avery book listed below mentions this book and credits George Rogers with the editorship, either of the book or perhaps only of the Jane Frank article - it is not clear. The book is a collection of profiles of forty Baltimore County women "who distinguished themselves" in diverse fields (including opera singer Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle
Rosa Ponselle , was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.-Early life:She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897,...
and golfer Carol Mann
Carol Mann
Carol Mann is an American professional golfer.Mann was born in Buffalo, New York and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland After attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mann joined the LPGA Tour in 1961. She won 38 tournaments on the tour, including two major championships, the 1964...
), compiled as part of a project celebrating the 1976 United States Bicentennial
United States Bicentennial
The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...
. The full-page Jane Frank article includes a photo of the artist in her studio.] OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
7441013
2. Avery, Ann (ed.), "American Artists of Renown, 1981-1982" [includes one color plate image of a Jane Frank work, along with a bio] (Wilson Publishing Co.: Gilmer, Texas
Gilmer, Texas
Gilmer is also the name of a county in West Virginia.Gilmer is a town in and the county seat of Upshur County, Texas, United States. It is best known for being the birthplace of popular music singer Johnny Mathis. The population was 4,799 at the 2000 census...
, 1981) ISSN 0276-5691; OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
7391331
3. Benezit, E. (ed.), "Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, desinateurs, et graveurs de tous les temps et tous les pays" ["Critical and Documentary Dictionary of Painters, Sculptors, Draftsmen, and Engravers of All Times and All Countries"], (Gründ, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, 1999) [Please note: in 2006, an English language edition of the Benezit Dictionary of Artists
Benezit Dictionary of Artists
The Benezit Dictionary of Artists is an extensive publication of bibliographical information on painters, sculptors, designers and engravers created primarily for art museums, auction houses, historians and dealers...
became available for the first time.] ISBN 2-7000-0149-4 [see Benezit Dictionary of Artists
Benezit Dictionary of Artists
The Benezit Dictionary of Artists is an extensive publication of bibliographical information on painters, sculptors, designers and engravers created primarily for art museums, auction houses, historians and dealers...
]
4. Busch, Julia M., "A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s" [contains three color and two b&w images of Jane Frank's sculptures, as well as some discussion of the work and several quotations from the artist] (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
5. Chiarmonte, Paula, "Women Artists in the United States: a Selective Bibliography and Resource Guide on the Fine and Decorative Arts" (G. K. Hall & Co., Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, 1990) [entry on Jane Frank is on page 606]. ISBN 0-8161-8917-X
6. Creps, Bob ; and Howard Creps; Biographical encyclopedia of American painters, sculptors & engravers of the U.S. : Colonial to 2002 (Land O'Lakes
Land O'Lakes
Land O'Lakes is a member-owned agricultural cooperative based in Arden Hills, Minnesota, focusing on the dairy industry. The co-op states that it has about 3200 producer-members, 1000 member-cooperatives, and about 9000 employees who process and distribute products for about 300,000 agricultural...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
: Dealer's Choice Books, 2002) [in two volumes: Jane Frank bio on p. 475 of first volume] ISBN 0-9668526-1-3
7. Davenport, Ray, "Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide, Gold Edition" (Ventura, California
Ventura, California
Ventura is the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States, incorporated in 1866. The population was 106,433 at the 2010 census, up from 100,916 at the 2000 census. Ventura is accessible via U.S...
, 2005) ISSN 1540-1553; OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
18196910
8. Dreikausen, Margret, "Aerial Perception: The Earth as Seen from Aircraft and Spacecraft and Its Influence on Contemporary Art" (Associated University Presses: Cranbury, NJ; London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
; Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga is a city in Southern Ontario located in the Regional Municipality of Peel, and in the western part of the Greater Toronto Area. With an estimated population of 734,000, it is Canada's sixth-most populous municipality, and has almost doubled in population in each of the last two decades...
: 1985) [includes color plate images of two of Jane Frank's aerial paintings]. ISBN 0-87982-040-3
9. Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson (Ed.), "The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005" (Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...
, 2005) [Please note: Worldcat lists Roger Dunbier as the editor of this work, whereas the Askart.com website - which publishes the book - names Lonnie Pierson Dunbier (presumably married to Mr. Dunbier) as editor.] OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
46913212
10. Frank, Jane. Jane Frank (pub. New York, N.Y. : Bodley Gallery, 1963) [catalogue for solo exhibition, with dates given as Oct. 22 - Nov. 9]. OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
80892120 [Also available in MICA library vertical file; see 'External links' for access help. Additionally, Worldcat has another listing for a book, in the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
, by "Jane Frank" and entitled Jane Frank; there is no mention of the Bodley Gallery, but under "Details," Worldcat has "Contents: Sculptural paintings : Jane Frank". Presumably this is the same 1963 catalogue; or perhaps it is the catalogue of Jane Frank's 1967 show at the Bodley. The OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
here is 83643093.
11. Frank, Jane; Arthur Mayer; Alwin Gallery. The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank [catalogue for exhibition at Alwin Gallery, 56 Brook Street, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Jan. 5-29, 1971.] Here is a link to the catalogue record of the copy at the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
: http://catalogue.nal.vam.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=119A595V2024S.29014&profile=nal&uri=link=3100035~!1688818~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=subtab114&menu=search&ri=4&source=~!horizon&term=The+sculptural+landscape+of+Jane+Frank.&index=ALLTITL. The book is also available in the MICA library vertical file on Jane Frank; see 'External links' for access help. This catalogue (confusingly taking the same title as the Stanton book) amounts nearly to a full monograph on the artist, with many images of the artist and the work, lists of exhibitions and other career summary material, and an extensive critical essay by Arthur Mayer. The Victoria and Albert Museum library description reads: "Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Alwin Gallery, London, 5 Jan. - 29 Jan. 1971. Text By Arthur Mayer."
12. Frank, Jane, "Monica Mink" (Vanguard Press, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, 1948) [children's book authored and illustrated by Jane Frank] OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
1687962
13. International Gallery. Jane Frank: sculptural paintings (Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
: International Gallery, 1965) [solo exhibition catalogue] OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
81811826 (Also available in the "Jane Frank" vertical file at the MICA library)
14. Jacques Cattell Press, ed., "Who's Who in American Art", 1980 (New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
: R.R. Bowker, 1980) [Jane frank entry pp. 240–241] ISBN 0-8352-1258-0
15. Jacques Cattell Press, ed., "Who's Who in American Art", 1984 (New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
; London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
: R.R. Bowker, 1984) [Jane frank entry p. 303] ISBN 0-8352-1878-3
16. Meissner, Gunter, "Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon: Die Bildenen Kuntsler aller Zeiten und Volker" ["Complete Dictionary of Artists of all Times and All Peoples"] (Pub. Saur: Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, 2005) [34-line Jane Frank entry on page 46, vol. 44] ISBN 3-598-22740-X
17. Opitz, Glenn B., ed., "Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers" (Poughkeepsie, NY : Apollo, 1983) ISBN 0-938290-02-9
18. Opitz, Glenn B., ed., "Dictionary of American Sculptors" (Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1984) ISBN 0-938290-03-7
19. Stanton, Phoebe B., "The Sculptural Landscape of Jane Frank" [highly informative and thorough monograph including b&w and color plates, 120pp. This is the most important and widely available published source on Jane Frank.] (A.S. Barnes: South Brunswick, New Jersey, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, 1968) ISBN 1-125-32317-5 [A second edition of this book was published in July 1969 (Yoseloff: London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, ISBN 0-498-06974-5; also ISBN 978-0498069741). At 144 pages, this is considerably longer than the 1968 edition; copies of the 1969 version appear to be quite rare.] (Google Book Search link to the 1969 version: http://books.google.com/books?id=z_48AAAACAAJ&dq=%22sculptural+landscape+of+jane+frank%22&lr=)
20. Watson-Jones, Virginia, "Contemporary American Women Sculptors" [this book is the source for the Questia external link provided below; the book's summary of Jane Frank's career emphasizes (naturally) her sculptures, properly speaking - as opposed to the paintings and mixed-media works on canvas.] [includes a b&w photo of sculpture ('Perpendicular Landscape')] (Oryx Press: Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, 1986) ISBN 0-89774-139-0
21. Yoseloff, Thomas, "The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel" [children's book with block print illustrations by Jane Frank] (New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
: Thomas Yoseloff 1957) [Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 57-6892] OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
24242276
22. Yoseloff, Thomas, "Jane Frank: A Retrospective Exhibition" [This exhibition catalogue amounts to another full monograph on the artist, with very high quality color and b&w plates, extensive textual discussion and quotation of the artist, and much specific and detailed information on Jane Frank's life, career, and individual artworks: 51 pp.] (A. S. Barnes: New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 1975) OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
2651512
Other readings (articles, etc.)
- Lisa Roney. "Contemporary American Women Sculptors" [review of book: Watson-Jones, Virginia. Contemporary American Women Sculptors. Oryx Press, 1986.] Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, 54. Spring - Summer, 1987. Roney notes that the volume celebrates a rich variety of creations, including "works that amuse (Viola Frey, b. 1932), threaten (Joan Danzinger, b. 1934), or maintain an abstract cool (Jane Frank, b. 1918)" [p. 54]. Link to JSTORJSTORJSTOR is an online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides its member institutions full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society...
record of the review here. - "What's New in Art", New York Times; Sunday, April 2, 1967; listing art openings for April 3 including "JANE FRANK - Bodley GalleryBodley GalleryThe Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...
, 787 Madison Avenue. Paintings. To April 21." - [Obituary article] "Jane Frank, Three-Dimensional Painter, dies at 67". Baltimore Sun, June 2, 1986.
External links
- Corcoran Gallery solo exhibitions for 1962: (listing Jane Frank solo exhibition at the Corcoran, February 6, 1962 - March 4, 1962)
- Smithsonian American Art Museum: Jane Frank (the museum's page on Jane Frank)
- Smithsonian American art museum: "Frazer's Hog Cay #18" (the museum's page documenting its possession of this mixed media work.)
- Access to Smithsonian Institution artist file folder on Jane Frank (Simply type 'jane frank' into search box and click; on next page, click the name again for more detail): "Folder(s) may include exhibition announcements, newspaper and/or magazine clippings, press releases, brochures, reviews, invitations, illustrations, resumes, artist's statements, exhibition catalogs."
- Askart.com: information pages on Jane Frank, with COLOR IMAGE of "Plum Point" (1964)
- Askart.com: COLOR IMAGE of "Rockscape II" (1961)
- Arkansas Arts Center: with COLOR IMAGE of Jane Frank's "Web of Rock" (1960)
- Arkansas Arts Center (LARGER IMAGE of Jane Frank's "Web of Rock"); link to image alone: http://www.aacwebkiosk.com/media/images/1963.006.jpg
- Maryland Institute College of Art, Decker Library, vertical file listings. In a special archive, MICAMaryland Institute College of ArtMaryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...
maintains approximately 400 vertical files on "people affiliated with MICA such as alumni, faculty, visiting artists, and staff and administrators, as well as local art institutions and MICA-related items of history." Listed here is a file on Jane Frank. The web page includes information on how to access file contents. This vertical file includes essential materials such as Jane Frank's 1986 obituary in the Baltimore Sun and the catalogue of her 1963 exhibition at the Bodley Gallery in New York, as well as the catalogue of her 1971 solo exhibition at LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Alwin Gallery. - E. Kirkbride Miller Art Research Library at the Baltimore Museum of Art: catalogue listing for vertical file on Jane Frank (Click on the word "OK" — then type Jane Frank in the box and click the "subject" button.)
- Jane Frank: photography bio file: in the library collection of the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in Long Island, NY 11101 United States - Joseph Curtis Sloane Art Library, file listing for Jane Frank at the University of North CarolinaUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
- Questia online library entry on Jane Frank (This information is rather incomplete, presumably because it is in the context of Questia's online copy of "Contemporary American Women Sculptors", by Virginia Watson-Jones, and therefore omits much information relating primarily to Jane Frank's works on canvas. Remember that the free-standing sculptures - as opposed to the "sculptural paintings" - do not become an important part of Jane Frank's output until the late 1960s. Consequently, for example, under 'Selected Individual Exhibitions', the sculpture-oriented bio includes neither the 1958 solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore Museum of ArtThe Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
nor the 1962 Corcoran Gallery solo exhibition - for these were entirely exhibitions of paintings, not sculpture. On the other hand, the best thing about the Watson-Jones bio is that it tracks Jane Frank's career into the 1980s, whereas the Phoebe Stanton monograph takes us only to 1968, and the Busch and Yoseloff books only get us up to the early to mid 1970s. A final caution: Norman CarlbergNorman CarlbergNorman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
's http://www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000160.html last name is here misspelled "Carlburg".) - French art criticism archive page (at www.archivcriticart.org), listing an art review in the French journal Les lettres françaises for 27 September 1972, in the section called "In the Galleries" ("Dans les galeries")
- Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museum dossier on Jane Frank's 1975 public monumental sculpture entitled "Allar" (aluminum, approx. 6 x 5 x 2 ft.), located at Towson University, Fine Arts Building, Osler & Cross Campus Drive, Towson, Maryland
- Page scan snippet from page 104 of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum's 1981 Handbook of the Collections documenting possession of a Jane Frank painting (Googlebooks search result, retrieved 3 Jun 2010)
