Audrey Flack is an American artist working in the genre of photorealism. Her work incorporates painting, sculpture, and photography, and it often portrays women, everyday objects, and important moments in modern history.
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Facts About Audrey Flack
- Audrey Flack was born in 1931 in Washington Heights in New York City, US.
- She went to school at the High School of Music and Arts in New York, and she went on to earn a graduate degree from New York’s Cooper Union and a Fine Arts degree from Yale University. She also studied Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York.
- Audrey Flack started out as an abstract expressionist painter, but in the 1960s she started to develop a photorealism approach.
- In 1966, Audrey Flack was the first photorealist painter to have work included in the Museum of Modern Art (New York) collection.
- Audrey Flack was one of the first painters to use photographs as the basis for her paintings. Her photorealist work is based around a cluttered and busy tabletop still life, including everyday objects such as lipstick tubes, perfume bottles, and fruit.
There is an instinct for realism, a powerful drive to reproduce oneself. The fascination of photorealistic paintings lies partly in their apparent replication of life, but these are not merely replications. These paintings are often out of life scale, varying from over life-size to under life-size, from brilliant, heightened color to pale, undertone hues.
Audrey Flack on Photorealism
- In addition to being a painter, Audrey Flack is also a talented sculptor. Her sculptures often feature heroic and powerful women and goddesses from history and myth. Some of her sculptures include Medusa (1989), Egyptian Rocket Goddess (1990), and Sofia (1995).
I believe art cuts across time. Art lives forever.
Audrey Flack
- Audrey Flacks has had her work shown in exhibitions and galleries in cities all over America, including New York, Tampa, Minneapolis, Louisville, San Francisco, Austin, Charlotte, Phoenix, and Roanoke.
- Audrey Flack plays the banjo in the band Art Band. The band performs songs about famous artists, including Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh, Picasso, Mary Cassat, Lee Krasner, and Camille Claudel. A CD of their music was released in 2013.
- She is inspired by Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Georges Braque, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Spanish sculptor Luisa Roldan.
- Alongside Chuck Close, Wayne Thiebaud, and Malcolm Morely, Audrey Flack is considered one of the key artists of the photorealism movement. Some of her best-known photorealist works include Marilyn: Golden Girl and Fortune (Vanitas), World War II (Vanitas), and Wheel of Fortune.
- Audrey Flack has written three books about art and her creative process. They are titled Audrey Flack On Painting, Audrey Flack: The Daily Muse, and Art and Soul: Notes on Creating.
Every still-life painter has her bag of tricks. You have your prop closet and just pull them out. One of the beauties of being an artist is that no one can tell me what to paint.
Audrey Flack in 1978
- In a 1994 interview, Audrey Flack said she was intrigued by some of the great 19th cenury sculptors, including Willam Rush, Charles Grafly, Malvina Hoffman, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, and Hiram Powers.
What makes for great art is the courage to speak and write and paint what you know and care about.
Audrey Flack
