This exhibition brings together paintings and works on paper by Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson—two notable figures in American art who emerged from the pursuit of rigorous abstraction to develop highly individual and beautifully compelling approaches to representation, fundamentally reinventing traditional definitions of landscape and still life painting. Their lives shared many parallels, yet it was in their distinctive approaches to painting that the two diverged. Freilicher abandoned abstraction early in her career, citing a need for what she termed the "seen" and her keen observation skirted realism in favor of an informal, fluidly vernacular kind of painting. Wilson, too, steered away from literal transcription, seeking to convey, in her words, those unseen "moments of strong sensation" in paint. It was here on the East End of Long Island that, over time, these two ground-breaking artists emphatically claimed their artistic territory, and, after decades-long careers, leave their enduring legacies.
