Jane Freilicher, 1924-2014

Jane Freilicher on June 1, 2013 at Tibor de Nagy beside Walter Silver's photo of her and John Ashbery taken 1952 at Tibor de Nagy. Credit: Lawrence Schwartzwald.

We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Jane Freilicher, a rare artist whose intelligence, wit, and gift for friendship will be sorely missed. We've compiled a few of our favorite images of Jane below, as well as one of my favorite paintings from our exhibit of her work earlier this year: Parts of a World, 1987.

For more of her exceptional paintings and drawings, peruse the portfolio from our January 2014 issue, with an essay by Jenni Quilter on Freilicher's relationships with poets of the New York School. As John Ashbery, her close friend, writes in "Leave It to Jane”:

Her pictures always have an air of just coming into being, of tentativeness that is the lifeblood of art. There are always new and surprising full passages where you couldn’t imagine another artist coming to the same decisions, which are invariably the right ones. Her subjects are often the same — still lifes or landscapes, sometimes viewed through a window — but the way of painting is constantly different, fresh, and surprising. Her work is rich in meanings that continue to resonate with us even after we have moved on and are thinking of something else. It is one reason why we value art and part of what makes her a great artist.

Rest in peace, Jane.

Film still from Rudy Burckhardt's The Automotive Story.

Freilicher and Ashbery in Mexico, 1955.

Parts of a World, 1987. Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.

I never mentioned my friends in my poems at the time I wrote
       The Circus
Although they meant almost more than anything to me
Of this now for some time I’ve felt an attenuation
So I’m mentioning them maybe this will bring them back to me
Not them perhaps but what I felt about them
John Ashbery Jane Freilicher Larry Rivers Frank O’Hara
Their names alone bring tears to my eyes.

—From "The Circus," by Kenneth Koch