Artist Interview

Artist Interview

Mary Frank (America, 1933)

Mary Frank is an American contemporary sculptor and painter living in Chelsea, Manhattan. She was born in1933 in London. Her mother was a painter and father was a musicologist (the academic study of music and its history). When their home was bombed during World War II, Mary and her mother moved from London to Brooklyn, New York, where her maternal grandparents lived, in 1940.

After moving to New York, Mary became interested in dance and studied modern dance with Martha Graham. However, she realized the limitation of her talent for dance and began to carve wood. At eighteen Mary married a photographer, Robert Frank, and had a son and a daughter. Being young, an only child with a husband that did not help raise the children, Mary found it difficult to interweave raising children with executing artworks.

Mary has never been to college or Art school. She mostly studied art by herself drawing in the Bronx and Central Park Zoo and botanical gardens and briefly took Hans Hofmann’s drawing class with Max Beckman in 1950. Mary has been influenced by Henry Moor, Giacometti, Brancusi, Pierre Bonnard, and Edgar Degas and also was inspired by the ancient art of Japan, China, Greece, Egypt and Africa (Carlene Meeker).

I really like her drawings, prints and sculpture of figures, especially “Persephone” that I feel is her best work. The exhibition, “Mary Frank: Persephone Studies”, opened at the Brooklyn Museum in 1987. Mary’s artworks unites “the real with mythical” and her vision is between “the natural world and the world of the imagination” (Jacki Lyden). Her figures give me feeling of humanity, passion, and power. Mary talked about “the observing heart”, which becomes her creations and shared with me her interesting poem, “There is no way to make art. I can only make palpable experience”.

Mary is also an “active” social activist that has protested against war and made an interesting poster against the Iraq War. The poster’s message is clear; “No War and More Education”. Mary is greatly concerned about the future of society in the U.S. and supports the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement down town and has herself march around Chelsea. She claims that everyone should be aware of a sense of crisis and conscious of what our government is doing.

It was a very interesting interview and I had a great experience and time. Mary told me to enjoy the class, Art in NY and when drawing I should use my body to do it and not to worry about if I am good at it. At the end of my interview, Mary gave me a message for young artists. The message is that artists and young artists not only work in studio, but also speak up to support our society through artworks.

Works Cited

Akagawa, Masako. Personal interview. 19 Nov. 2011

Lyden, Jacki. “Artist Mary Frank Mingles the Real with the Mythical”. NPR. 29 Dec.2007. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.

Meeker, Carlene. "Mary Frank." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.