Suzan Frecon (born 1941 in Mexico, Pennsylvania) is a

contemporary artist Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art i ...

who lives and works in New York. She is represented by Lawrence Markey, San Antonio and

David Zwirner David Zwirner (born October 23, 1964) is a German art dealer and owner of the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, and Paris. His gallery represents over seventy artists. Early life and education Zwirner wa ...

, New York. Frecon received a BFA from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, University Park, Pennsylvania and subsequently studied painting at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

, Strasbourg, France and École Nationale Superiéure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France.

Work

Suzan Frecon is a painter known for her large scale abstract works. She describes her artistic practice as a quest, saying, "I seek for my paintings to reach a high, pure form of abstraction, so that they exist on their own strength as painting, without the embellishment, or distraction, or subject or story." She is critically acclaimed for her arrangement of color, form, and texture and for the philosophical resonance of her art. While best known for her large, immersive oil paintings, Frecon's small watercolors, delicate works on paper, constitute a significant part of her work. Frecon has been making watercolors and oil paintings simultaneously for more than two decades. she began concentrating more intensely on the watercolors during an illness in the late 1980s when she needed a smaller format that didn't require as much physical labor.

Exhibitions

Frecon's first solo exhibition at

, New York was on view in the fall of 2010. On the occasion of the exhibition, a catalogue was published by Radius Books, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It features a text by art historian Joachim Pissarro as well as illustrations of her most recent large-scale oil paintings. Other major solo exhibitions include the

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs a ...

, Houston, Texas (2008),

Kunstmuseum Bern The Museum of Fine Arts Bern (German: ''Kunstmuseum Bern''), established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the de facto capital of Switzerland. Collections Its holdings run from the Middle Ages to the present. It houses works by Pa ...

, Bern, Switzerland (2006 and 2008), and The

Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a museum and a nonprofit exhibition space in Manhattan, New York City, that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of dr ...

, New York (2002). Recently, her work was the focus of another solo exhibition at David Zwirner, entitled ''oil paintings and sun''. Her work has also been included in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

in 2000 and 2010. Frecon's works are represented in the permanent collections of prominent institutions, including the

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.; The

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; the

, Houston; and the

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Awards

In 2001, she was awarded an individual support award from the

Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation was established in 1976. It is an American nonprofit organization that provides funding for the arts. History The Gottlieb Foundation was established after Adolph Gottlieb’s death in 1974. Esther Gottlie ...

. From 2004, she has been a member of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts studios in Manhattan. In 2022, she was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

. In 2025, Frecon was awarded the Alexej von Jawlensky Prize by the state capital of Wiesbaden. The award ceremony will take place on the occasion of the 2027 exhibition associated with the prize at the

Museum Wiesbaden The Museum Wiesbaden is a two-branch museum of Art museum, art and Natural history museum, natural history in the Hesse, Hessian capital of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Hessian ...

.https://www.wiesbaden.de/pressemitteilungen/pressereferat/2025/juni/250605-Jawlensky-Preis

References

External links

Suzan Frecon, 2010 Whitney Biennial Artist
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Works in the permanent collection
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Form, Color, Illumination: Suzan Frecon
Monograph published by Menil Collection, Kunstmuseum Bern, and Yale University Press 2008
Work in the permanent collection
The Menil Collection, Houston. {{DEFAULTSORT:Frecon, Suzan Living people 1941 births Painters from New York (state) 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters

Work

Exhibitions

Awards

References

Further reading

External links