"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 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)., 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." [6]
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).
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: Nairobi" 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.]
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 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."
Books
1.
American Association of University Women, (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: [7]. 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: [8])
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
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 JSTOR 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 Gallery, 787 Madison Avenue. Paintings. To April 21."
- [Obituary article] "Jane Frank, Three-Dimensional Painter, dies at 67". Baltimore Sun, June 2, 1986.