A society of Fauvists
Inger Jirby celebrates Alyce Frank
THIS SATURDAY (Jan 22), acclaimed “Taos Expressionist” Alyce Frank turns 90, and the Inger Jirby Gallery on Ledoux Street is celebrating.
“Alyce and I painted together for three or four years,” Inger Jirby recalls, “and for two years (between 2012 and 2014), I painted a series of narrative paintings about Alyce Frank and her home.”
Frank was born in Louisiana, a gifted child she applied to a liberal arts program at the age of fifteen and was accepted to the University of Chicago. After graduating three years later, she moved to Los Angeles, attending graduate school at UCLA and the University of Southern California (USC).
It was at USC where she met her future husband, Larry Frank. He was an aspiring filmmaker when they married in 1953. For the next decade, Alyce Frank worked on educational films that her husband produced. She later noted that understanding film editing had helped hone her sense of perception, perspective and composition.
The Franks moved to New Mexico in 1962, but it would be another decade before she began to paint. Expressing herself in the vivid landscape paintings she came to be known for, heavily influenced by Fauvism and the German Expressionists.
Although widely known as a longtime painting partner of fellow Taos artist Barbara Zaring, Frank collaborated with many artists in Taos over the years, including Inger Jirby.
For over 25 years, she created an immense body of work, many of which were collected into the book “The Magical Realism of Alyce Frank” by Joseph Dispenza in 1999.
Frank’s work is included in several important private collections and museums.
The exuberant Fauvist works Inger Jirby has become famous for, have early origins in the far north of Sweden, where light is more precious than gold. Her family were art lovers and Jirby was encouraged to be creative.
“There was always art,” she says, “and in 1910 through 1912, Matisse had a school in Paris,” she recalls, “a lot of Swedish artists studied with him and came from his school (to the region) to paint, so I grew up with their work.”
“My parents owned many original paintings,” she says, “and in those days there was no television, so when guests came over, they would discuss the art.” Inger lived all over Europe, including Italy, France and Greece where on the island of Mykonos she studied with the Mexican painter Luis Orozco, before spending a decade in New York City. She came to New Mexico over 30 years ago, first settling in Santa Fe before moving to Taos.
The interior paintings of Alyce Frank’s home remind one of Van Gogh’s work in Arles, or Matisse during his Moroccan period; the saturated color and layers of texture and pattern bring the rooms to life.
They are a departure from the landscapes Jirby too, is known for. “Alyce is an awesome landscape painter,” Jirby says, “they are very unusual and brave compositions.” Five of Jirby’s paintings of Alyce and her home will be on display at the Inger Jirby Gallery this Saturday, along with three paintings by Frank owned by Jirby.