Aug. 28, 2014
Mary Frank has been making art for more than six decades. Her exploration of wood, plaster, wax, clay, monotype, ink, cut out paper, paint, and photography has yielded a rich body of work. She sculpts, draws, paints, prints or cuts out of paper archetypal figures that raise their arms, crouch, leap, recline, stride purposefully, or clutch their breasts, as well as spectral robed figures, animals, plants, and architectural fragments. The figures are depicted in rugged, elemental landscapes, which themselves may be contained within silhouetted figures or heads, suggesting spirit worlds and states of consciousness. Rooted in myth and imbued with a dream-like logic, her narratives explore the themes of loss, pain, despair, love, hope, survival, the fragility of life, and the cycles of renewal; her protagonists are often portrayed in motion, emphasizing the quest rather than the outcome. A man drawn in black ink races through spiky clouds formed of actual milkweed seeds while a storm, suggested by some thick strokes of green paint, rages at his back; two stick figures, one close to the viewer, the other distant, bend toward each other over a rock chasm, unified in a broken arc even as they never touch; a couple embrace beneath an ink drawing of a soaring raptor.
Tension is created in her sculptures, works on paper and paintings, some of which consist of triptychs, with one narrative literally opening up to another, through the juxtaposition of opposites: near and far, body and the void—the figure isolated in space and space carved out of the figure are common motifs—flatness and three-dimensional form, stasis and flight, substance and shadow, release and confinement, delicate lines and rough texture. Forms also merge and metamorphose into each other: a human head sprouts wings, a portrait of a man is superimposed on a buffalo’s body, a woman’s outstretched arms leaf into branches in a replay of the Daphne myth. The artwork itself is not easily categorized, and sculpture and painting are played off each other, with floral patterns and tiny figures etched and printed into the curving surfaces of her clay figures and layers of paint covering the canvas in a thick sediment.
The expressive power and raw emotion of her work emanates from this inventive use of materials. Each piece has the force of a new birth, incorporating a measure of joy and pain. The transparency of her process, the sense of play–so beautifully conveyed in her most recent body of work, a series of photographs of tableaux-like arrangements of her sculptures, paintings, cut-outs, and found objects–invites the viewer’s participation. The fragment points to the whole, enticing the imagination. The ambiguities of her formal language invite multiple interpretations and associations, establishing a dialog between the artwork and the viewer.
Uprooted by World War II, Mary experienced displacement and isolation as a young child. Born in London in 1933, she moved to New York City at age 7 with her mother, a painter, where they lived in a tiny Greenwich Village apartment. She studied dance with Martha Graham, married photographer Robert Frank at age 17, had two children and began making art. Her first pieces were carved wood sculptures depicting figures and animals inspired in part by the ancient Egyptian works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite the fact that figuration was out of sync with the fashion for abstraction and she was a woman artist in a pre-feminist era, her first solo exhibition in the early 1960s attracted notice. She went on to have a long, fruitful career, exhibiting at major museums and receiving numerous prestigious awards, including two Guggenheim fellowships. She has been the subject of numerous books and essays authored by distinguished art historians, including Hayden Herrera, and illustrated many books (including Shadows of Africa, written by Peter Matthiessen). For many years she has been represented by Elena Zang Gallery, located in Woodstock, and DC Moore Gallery, in New York City.
Now there’s a film, to be shown at Upstate Films in Woodstock on August 31. Entitled Visions of Mary Frank, it was made by long-time friend John Cohen and recounts her early years in the Village, which was the center of the New York art world. Reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe several decades earlier, she was much photographed; the film shows portraits by Walker Evans, Max Kozlof, Edouard Boubat, Edward Steichen and other well-known photographers. It captures the freewheeling excitement of the era, with footage of Mary chatting with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac on a street corner and photos from a costume party hosted in her loft.
But Visions of Mary Frank is not so much a biopic as a paean to her work. From the beginning, her motivation was to “to invent a way to get to the mystery,” as she puts it. “I never had the feeling I could make art,” she says in the film. “I could make something that at best would come close to the feeling of an experience.” The contemporaries who influenced her, a few of whom she pays tribute to in the film, are lesser-known, even obscure colleagues and friends, rather than the big names that dominate the art history books.
The film opens with a lovely pan of a large clay female head poised on the roof garden of her New York loft. The repose of the meditative figure is intensified by the contrast with the cluttered urban skyline. (Indeed, the movement of the camera seems to deepen the mysterious charge of her sculptures, monumental, eternal presences whose stillness fairly vibrates.) The camera circles around the mask-like head, which is revealed to be truncated; instead of rounded form, the opposite side consists of a flat plane, in which is gouged a swirling shape, a negative space signifying the animation of invisible thought—or possibly a deep wound, stamp or sign. A hand caresses the face as we hear, and then see, Frank singing a French folk song, an intimate, child-like moment utterly at odds with the vast and impersonal cityscape. Interspersed with interviews of the artist in her studios in New York and Lake Hill, where she and her husband, musicologist, writer and pianist Leo Treitler, spend half the year, is footage that lovingly records her work and process, accompanied by a sound track whose sources, like those of her art, span the globe and the centuries (it includes selections from Bach, Thelonious Monk, Japanese traditional music, and Portuguese Fado).
I recently visited Mary at her Lake Hill home and studio to interview her about the film as well as her art, life, and activism (for the last 17 years, Mary has been actively promoting the use of solar cookers in the developing world through her work with solarcookers.org). Drawings and paintings lean against the wall and invade the floor, on which is painted a large blue head in profile, an orange boat, mountains and other images that appear in some of her photographs. Several shadow pieces are taped to the window overlooking the garden; in these, cuts made with scissors into the white paper catch the light, resulting in lines of pulsating luminosity describing an antelope, a seated nude, a cloud-ringed sky. Mary flips through prints of her photos, in which small and large nude and robed figures, animals, and birds, both painted and sculpted in clay, monumental doorways, caves, and mountains, and actual natural objects and materials, such as stones, leaves, twigs, and water, are arranged in mystical narratives that play with space (literal and illusory), light and shadow, texture and scale.
In the garden, behind a mass of flowers one glimpses a recumbent life-sized bronze nude. From one side, the figure looks shattered; grass grows between the interstices of the fragments. Viewed from the opposite side, however, the figure is imbued with tremendous energy and seems to be lifting from the ground. In another nook, a bronze mask-like half face is half hidden in the greenery. Perched on a dilapidated table is a small clay slab, sculpted into a wave, from which emerges a standing figure, one foot forward, in the pose of an ancient Egyptian funerary statue; the motif, which was inspired by Mary’s drawings of swimmers and sunbathers on the beach at Cape Cod, imbues the familiar pose with new life and meaning, as if the statue, after being frozen for 4,000 years, has finally been released into movement, continuing its stride.
The following conversation takes place back the studio:
LW: Who is John Cohen and how did the film come about?
MF: Dee Dee Halleck, a video artist and political activist, started making a film a long time ago. John Cohen, who has made numerous documentaries in Peru and Appalachia, has known my work since the 1950s. He lived next door to me when I was married to Robert Frank and knew my children. He brought my kids up on a roof so they could dance to a guy playing the guitar and mouth organ and singing. He looked 17 and his name was Bob Zimmerman. John married Pete Seeger’s half sister and played with the New Lost City Ramblers. He’s 81 but performs around the country playing with his band Velocity Ramblers. He used some of Dee Dee’s footage, also stills from the 1950s and 1960s he had taken. You can see the chaos and intimacy of the art scene. The art world back then was tiny. Nobody expected to make money, and there were very wonderful artists who didn’t.
LW: What was it like viewing a film of your life?
MF: It’s John Cohen’s film and view of my work. There are parts of my life I can’t bear to look at and other things I wished were in the film. He didn’t make a biopic but something stronger and much more personal. A lot of people seem very moved by it.
LW: You were married to Robert Frank, the photographer. Was his photography an influence?
MF: I was only 15 when I met him, and he had an amazing eye, which influenced me. My mother was an artist so I had always looked at art, but his view was different.
LW: You studied briefly with two big names, Hans Hoffmann and Max Beckmann. What was each man like, and what did you learn from them?
MF: I studied with Max Beckmann at the American Art School on 133rd Street. I didn’t realize how great he was until later. He came over and put his adz marks on everybody’s drawing, which made them better.
I hardly saw Hoffmann. I took his drawing class very briefly twice and didn’t participate in his critiques. His paintings didn’t interest me much. I was more influenced by the students I met there. One was Jan Muller, who was German and came to America after the war. The Guggenheim had a big show of his work.
LW: When you were living in your downtown loft Willem de Kooning lived behind you. Did you know him? Was he an influence?
MF: I knew him and he was wonderful. If he hadn’t been a painter he could have been a very good writer. But he was idolized and there was a lot of fawning, which turned me off. It’s too bad because he’s such a powerful painter. I came to him late.
LW: How did you survive in those early years, when you were raising two children?
MF: I taught life drawing at the New School and then had a teaching job at Queens College. I also won some grants. It would have been great for me if feminism had been around earlier. The whole thing of raising children and trying to work was very difficult. It was chaos. I thought it could work, but it was a romantic notion that didn’t play out in real life.
LW: How do you begin your pieces?
MF: The chance possibilities that evolve from working with ideas and different materials is very powerful to me, also delving into the material itself, be it clay, ink, paint, or paper. It’s always about experience, inchoate and not verbalized… I never make the piece I intend to make. Also I draw from my background of looking at a lot of work, including folk, ancient and contemporary art, reading poetry, and listening to music.
LW: What’s the particular appeal of ancient cultures?
MF: Ancient art, from pre-Columbian to Chinese, is pretty powerful because it covers the vast range of human emotion and expression. They didn’t distinguish between the human being and cosmic forces and animals. Those cultures didn’t draw those harsh lines [between humans and nature]. And look where we are now. There’s a wholeness and richness to those ancient cultures.
LW: Was there an advantage in not going to art school?
MF: I wouldn’t have done certain things if I’d gone to school. People might say ‘you can’t do that,’ but I didn’t know you couldn’t, so I tried it and I could do it. I didn’t have a kiln for years and dragged my pieces to be fired in New Rochelle. One reason I made fragments was I didn’t have an eight-foot kiln. The limitation gave me freedom. I remade the torso, the arm, and the head until I could get what I liked. I liked the spaces between. People focus on the fragment, but for me the spaces were really important.
LW: Your photographs don’t look like photographs in the conventional sense. How did they evolve?
MF: I started painting images–a head, mountains, a walled hill, a tree, and ships– directly on the studio floor for no reason. Then I started putting leaves or sticks from the garden on top of these images and also small, older sculptures. It was good looking down on the combination of old work and new things. I bought a cheap camera and starting photographing them. Now I use a digital camera. What you see is what I photographed. I like that it’s open to interpretation and that people can engage.
LW: Your work often depicts figures in distant space next to a close-up of a face or part of a figure. Such jumps in scale imbue your work with a sense of cosmic depth as well as intimacy.
MF: When I visited the beach at Cape Cod, I used to dig a hole in the sand so my eye level would be low. The lower it was, the more extreme the scale, so a nearby figure would appear huge and a distant figure tinier than normal.
LW: I love your illustrations of animals in Shadows of Africa, which are Zen-like ink drawings, cut outs, sculptures and paintings. When did you go to Africa?
MF: I never went to Africa, other than Morocco. The Central Park Zoo used to have a gallery, where I showed the work from that book. All my life I’ve drawn in zoos and natural history museums, wherever I see animals, and from my head. I met Matthiessen when I was a fellow member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. I told him I had monoprints of snow leopards, so he came to the studio. He influenced me in many ways. He was a great man. I’d been working with solarcookers.org before I met him and he said ‘Mary, anyone who turns a spigot or turns a knob to get water, cook, or get heat has no idea of how most of the world lives. People, birds, fish, and animals all need the same thing, which is clean air, water and food.’ I hadn’t realized the immensity of the repercussions when he said that. It was so powerful and clear, and finally huge numbers of people are realizing the urgency of this.
LW: Some of your art has been inspired by the horrors of the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, environmental degradation, and other world traumas. You’ve also been an activist yourself. When did this involvement start?
MF: After my son, Pablo, was born in 1951 I remember walking with Grace Paley and other women to the UN with our baby carriages to protest the contamination of milk by nuclear fallout. Friends and I carried placards of my work at demonstrations against the Vietnam War and later in protests against the war in Iraq. And I did a poster for the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Watch.
When civil war broke out in El Salvador, Leo, my husband, figured out what U.S. citizens were paying in taxes to have innocent people labeled communists and then killed. After the Archbishop Romero was murdered, along with the ten Jesuit professors from the University of El Salvador and their housekeeper and her daughter, our group established Woodstock as the sister city to the Pueblo of El Buen Pastor, population 100. We brought people here and also sent people down there during the war. After the war I went with Leo to El Salvador to witness the first elections. The people were extraordinary. I had never seen community like that before in my life. They had seen all these horrors and yet were very strong.
LW: How are solar cookers helping the world?
MF: It’s saving women and their daughters, who are the ones collecting firewood in South and Central America, the Near East, and much of Africa and Asia, from being raped. As deforestation increases, they must walk farther and sleep out in order to get wood, which puts them at greater risk. Half the world cooks with wood. There are many people who have grains but they’re going hungry because they have no fuel to cook them with. People spend more money on fuel than on food; with a solar cooker, they can afford to get a goat. Also carbon smoke from wood fires causes pollution and lung cancer.
I proselytize like crazy about this. I did a demonstration with two women from Kenya in front of the UN cooking meat, fish, vegetables, grains, bread, and cake and purifying water using 17 cookers. There were people from 65 countries watching with tears streaming down faces. We’re raising money and awareness. It’s taken off.
LW: Do you have a solar cooker?
MF: Yes, and I use mine a lot. I just made quinoa and lentils and also have made pulled pork and chicken. It’s all delicious.
LW: What is your view about how high technology and the Internet are transforming the world?
MF: I think kids now learn it in utero. The word about solar cookers is getting around through the Internet. However, the belief that high technology can solve all human problems is not true because half the world has no electricity.
LW: Do you have hope for the future?
MF: The biggest challenge is overpopulation, which is the least talked about because the subject is taboo for the major religions. But if it’s not addressed, efforts to save the environment will be severely limited. Despite all the horrors, I am stunned by how many people all over the world are doing extraordinary, creative things.
LW: Do you have any upcoming shows?
MF: Yes, from September 26 to January 18 there will be retrospective of my work at the Asheville Art Museum, in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s called “Mary Frank: Finding My Way Home” and consists of over 60 pieces. Also I’m having a show at the Jerald Melberg Gallery, in Charlotte, North Carolina, on view from September 13 through October 25.
Visions of Mary Frank, Upstate Films in Woodstock, 2:30 pm, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker John Cohen and Mary Frank; tickets $20; reception afterwards at Elena Zang Gallery with exhibition of Mary Frank’s work up through Labor Day weekend, 3671 Rt. 212, Woodstock. Woodstockfilmfestival.com and elenazang.com