Flora Crockett: Modern Color

Flora Crockett modern color

Flora Crockett modern color

Untitled, 1942 Oil on canvas board,

Introduction

Flora Crockett: Modern Color is the third exhibition of the artist’s work that we have had the privilege to present. It is a survey of the artist’s paint ings from 1942 to 1973. Grounded in her training with Fernand Léger in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, Crockett’s paintings reflect a confidence to explore her own artistic directions with a keen wit and bold invention. Reviews of her abstractions have invariably remarked on her strong sense of color, which has been described as “bright,” “fresh,” and as having both “pictorial” and “psycho logical” significance. Indeed, Crockett’s palette is distinctive. Her color choices give her paintings a unique sensibility that reveal both her enigmatic surrealist roots and fundamentally optimistic outlook.

While Crockett participated in several exhibitions in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, most of the paintings in this exhibition have never been shown before. And while she did not achieve the recognition that she had hoped for in her lifetime, she persevered, working at a variety of jobs to support her artistic en deavors. Crockett seems to have been driven to paint. In a lecture given earlier this year, Crockett’s great-niece Mary Lacoursiere remarked: “Flora Crockett was an artist, educator, inventor, and art director. She never let the lack of rec ognition dissuade her and she painted steadily until the end of her life. My father said that many of the friends she made later in life didn’t even know she was an artist—when they visited her, her work was not to be seen. Perhaps, at that point, the only thing that mattered to Flora was making it.”

We are enormously grateful to Meghan Schwab for overseeing all aspects of this project, and to Mary Lacoursiere for once again giving us the opportunity to bring Flora Crockett’s work to the public so that, at long last, it can be seen.

Meredith E. Ward Debra G. Wieder

Secretary Wallace at Madison Square Garden, 1945 Oil on canvas board, 28 x 22 inches

Untitled, c. 1940s Oil on canvas board, 22 x 29 inches

Untitled, c. 1967 Oil on canvas board, 24 x 30 inches

20-69, 1969

Oil on canvas board, 24 x 36 inches

Untitled, c. 1940s-1950s Oil on canvas board, 30 x 24 inches

Aug-73-73, 1973

Oil on canvas board, 24 x 20 inches

10-70, 1970

Oil on canvas board,

inches

published in conjunction with the exhibition

Flora Crockett modern color

october 6 november 18, 2022

Meredith Ward Fine Art 44 east 74th street suite g new york new york 10021 tel 212 744 7306 fax 212 744 7308 inf o @meredithwardfineart.com www.meredithwardfineart.com

design Katie Michel, New York photography Michael Tramis, New York

cover 20-69, 1969, oil on canvas board, 24 x 36 inches frontispiece Untitled, c. 1967, oil on canvas board, 24 x 30 inches

publication copyright © 2022 meredith ward fine art

Meredith Ward Fine Art

44 east 74th street suite g new york new york 10021