Lynne Mapp Drexler (May 21, 1928– December 30, 1999) was an American abstract and representational artist, painter and photographer.

Early life and education

Lynne Drexler was born on May 21, 1928 and raised in the

Newport News, Virginia Newport News () is an Independent city (United States), independent city in southeastern Virginia, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the List of c ...

, area. Her parents were Norman E. Drexler, a manager at a public utility, and Lynne P. Drexler. At the age of 11, she was an only child and had been living in Raleigh Terrace,

Elizabeth City Elizabeth City is a city in Pasquotank county, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,629. Elizabeth City is the county seat and most populous city of Pasquotank County. It is the cultural, economic and educational h ...

(now

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia * Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria ** Hampton railway station, Melbour ...

), Virginia. She began painting as a child. Later, Drexler took art classes in Virginia at the

Richmond Professional Institute The Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) was an educational institution established in 1917, which merged with the Medical College of Virginia in 1968 to form Virginia Commonwealth University. RPI was located on what is now known as the Monroe P ...

and at the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

. She moved to New York City in the mid to late 1950s to further her study art under

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

and

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

, under their tutelage she developed an interest in

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

.Paintings by Maine artist Lynne Drexler on view at the Portland Museum of Art
. Portlandmuseum.org. August 1, 2008. Retrieved on February 2, 2014. Motherwell taught her composition and draftsmanship techniques and the philosophy "that to be an artist meant first and foremost that one had to create work worthy of attention". Her tendency to create vibrant paintings using a free brush stroke was influenced by Hofmann and the work of

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

. Hofmann also introduced the notion that composition is influenced by color, which he called the "push-pull" concept.

Adulthood

Cosmopolitan life

In the late 1950s, she was an

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

and was "counted among an important group of women artists whose figural and landscape works were often overlooked during the heyday of post-abstract expressionist modernism – artists such as

Jane Freilicher Jane Freilicher (November 19, 1924 – December 9, 2014) was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginn ...

Lois Dodd Lois Dodd (born 1927), is an American painter and educator. Dodd was a key member of New York's postwar art scene. She played a large part and was involved in the wave of modern artists including Alex Katz and Yvonne Jacquette who explored the co ...

, and Jane Wilson." She would often go to opera and symphony performances with a sketchpad and colored crayons in hand to make sketches inspired by the music. Drexler's

Pattern and Decoration A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

embroidery and patchwork influenced some of her later works, similar designs often appeared in her painting's backgrounds. In 1961, Drexler met fellow artist

John Hultberg John Hultberg (February 8, 1922 – April 15, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist and Abstract realist painter. Early in his career he was related to the Bay Area Figurative Movement; he was also a lecturer and playwright. Early life a ...

at The Artist's Club in New York. Artists there discussed abstract expressionism. She had her first solo exhibition of eleven works at Tanager Gallery. Drexler and Hultberg were married on May 25, 1962 and for three years they traveled and lived in Mexico, the West Coast and Hawaii. They then lived at New York's

Chelsea Hotel The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street (Manhattan), 23rd Street in the Chelsea, Manhattan, Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hot ...

in the late 1960s.Lynne Drexler biography.
Spanierman Modern. Retrieved February 2, 2014. In an exhibition of seven married couples, ''Mr. and Mrs.'' at Alonzo, Drexler's painting "is concerned with juxtaposing diversely patterned areas of vivid colors" while her husband's work was said to reflect "an outer-space, figurative orientation".

Monhegan Island

The couple bought a summer house off the coast of Maine on Monhegan Island in 1971. By 1983, Drexler lived year-around near Lighthouse Hill on

Monhegan Island Monhegan () is an island in the Gulf of Maine. A plantation, a minor civil division in the state of Maine falling between unincorporated area and a town, it is located approximately off the mainland and is part of Lincoln County, Maine, United S ...

, an artists' haven off the coast of Maine. The island people and landscape were the subject of many of her paintings from that time.“Lynne Drexler: Painter” at the Monhegan Museum
Workingwaterfront.com. Retrieved on February 2, 2014."Lynne Drexler: Her light and times."
''The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram'' (March 13, 2010). Retrieved on 2014-02-02. Drexler's paintings became less strictly abstract and exhibited a synthesis of abstract and representational influences. Calm Cove

Drexler died December 30, 1999, at her home on Monhegan Island.

Posthumous exhibitions

After she died, her work was exhibited at a number of galleries, including the

Anita Shapolsky Gallery The Anita Shapolsky Gallery is an art gallery that was founded in 1982 by Anita Shapolsky. It is currently located at 152 East 65th Street, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, in New York City. The gallery specializes in 1950s and 1960s abstract ...

in New York City, and the Jameson Modern in Portland, Maine. The first comprehensive exhibit of her work – showcasing over fifty paintings, photographic images and textiles – ran at the Monhegan Museum in August and September 2008. It then ran at the

Portland Museum of Art The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine. History The PMA use ...

from December 6, 2008, through March 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized by the Monhegan Historical and Cultural Museum Association. In 2010, her works were shown at the Portland Museum and at the McCormick Gallery in Chicago. In 2023,

White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centra ...

announced representation of the Lynne Drexler Archive. In May of 2024,

Farnsworth Art Museum The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, ...

launched an exhibition entitled ''Lynne Drexler: Color Notes'' that featured a collection of her works along with an accompanied playlist that ran from May 4, 2024 through January 12, 2025.https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/exhibition/lynne-drexler-color-notes/

Collections

Her works are in the collections of: *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

, Chicago, Illinois *

Bates College Bates College () is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian ...

, Lewiston, Maine *

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, Brooklyn, New York *

, Rockland, Maine *

Hudson River Museum The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County, and features the only public planetarium in the county. While often considered an art museum due to its extensive collection of Hu ...

, Yonkers, New York *

Muscarelle Museum of Art The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a p ...

, Williamsburg, Virginia *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

, Washington, D.C. *

, Maine * Prentice Hall Collection, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey *

Provincetown Art Association and Museum Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Pro ...

, Provincetown, Massachusetts *

Queens Museum The Queens Museum (formerly the Queens Museum of Art) is an art museum and educational center at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. Established in 1972, the museum includes the '' Panorama of the City of New ...

, Queens, New York * Tamarind Print Collection, Los Angeles *

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the Public university, public university system of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes six campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell ...

, Amherst

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Drexler, Lynne Mapp 1999 deaths 1928 births Painters from New York (state) 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American painters