Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan (1922 – 2008) was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s.  Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in their artistic endeavors, included Jackson PollockLarry RiversHelen FrankenthalerWillem and Elaine de Kooning and Frank O'Hara.

 

Hartigan was often thought of as a "second generation Abstract Expressionist", being heavily influenced by her colleagues of the time. Her early career was characterized by experiments with total abstraction, as seen in the work Six by Six (1951) currently in the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center in Poughkeepsie, NYBeginning in the early fifties, Hartigan began to incorporate more recognizable motifs and characters into her paintings.

 

Her paintings are held by numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.